Coyiuto camp withdraws from PSE polls

Candidates associated with stockbroker-businessman Robert Coyiuto Jr. have decided to withdraw from the Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) elections scheduled this Saturday, expressing their disappointment over the turn of events that they felt worked against their favor.

Backing out from the elections are Filomeno Francisco of AB Capital Securities; Eddie Gobing of Lucky Securities; Edwin Luy of Triton Securities; Federico Lim of Belson Securities; Harry Liu of Summit Securities; Paulino Soo of Abacus Securities; Joseph Roxas of Eagle Equities and Gregorio Chan of Tri-State Securities.

"In view of the way the nominations and election rules were written and implemented by the majority of the five-member PSE Nominations and Elections Committee (Nomelec) and the recent Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) rulings which clearly favored one group, we strongly believe that these elections will not be fair to the shareholders nor to the public," the group said in a letter circulated to the broker-members yesterday.

They added the action of the two bodies was regrettable, saying it resulted in the infringement and open disregard of the PSE’s self-regulatory organization (SRO) status to govern itself in a proper and transparent manner.

The withdrawal of the team will leave the remaining broker candidates assured of a slot among the seven board seats reserved for brokers. They consist of standard bearer for the PSE chairmanship post Alicia Arroyo of RCBC Securities, Gregorio Kilayko of ABN-Amro Securities; Marita Limlingan of Regina Capital; Joseph Madrid of Phil-Equity Partners; Myron Timothy Papa of Papa Securities; Rodolfo Cruz of HK Securities and William Ang of Astra Securities.

The Arroyo group is backed by incumbent PSE chairperson Vivian Yuchengco.

Coyiuto’s rivalry with Yuchengco dates back to the time when there were still two bourses: the Manila and Makati Stock Exchanges. Their feud heightened last year when Yuchengco won over Coyiuto as PSE chairman despite the latter’s clear majority in the number of brokers’ seats, as the crucial votes of the majority non-broker directors provided the swing votes in Yuchengco’s favor.

This year, however, both were prevailed upon by President Arroyo to refrain from running again to resolve the internal conflict within the board, unify the bourse, smoothly implement reform measures and liven up the stock market.

The Coyiuto camp assailed the shortlisting of candidates for independent non-brokers, which even led to the refusal by incumbent director Fr. Joaquin Bernas of his appointment; his replacement by banker Peter Favila; and the resetting and non-postponement of the election schedule.

In a related development, the Securities and Exchange Commission said yesterday that there was nothing illegal about the decision of the PSE’s Nomelec to shortlist the independent directors for the bourse to just four.

At the same time, the SEC turned down the request of the disqualified independent-director nominees to get included in the final list of candidates for the PSE board.

SEC Markets Regulation Department Jose P. Aquino said the Nomelec’s decision to shortlist was in compliance with a circular issued by the corporate watchdog agency in November which provides that independent PSE directors should not be allowed to solicit votes or be subject to election by shareholders until the shares of the exchange are listed.

Aquino said the commission has also given preference to incumbent directors since they are more familiar with the operations and policies of the exchange.

He also cited the PSE by-laws, which clearly states that the non-broker candidates to the board of directors shall be nominated by a special nominations committee.

Represented by their legal counsel, former SEC Chairman Rosario N. Lopez, newspaper publisher Napoleon Rama and former Labor Secretary Bienvenido Laguesma, have asked the Nomelec and the SEC to allow them to run in the upcoming elections of the PSE board of directors this Saturday. – With Zinnia dela Peña