Man in black

Did you know 1: Former Leyte Governor Benjamin Romualdez has traded in his all-white outfits for all-black ones. Kokoy Romualdez calls these his undertaker uniform.

Yes, he still doesn’t wear socks.

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Did you know 2: Boholanos seem to be better acquainted with the details of how Cesar Montano proposed marriage to Sunshine Cruz (and proud of it!) than that blood compact between Rajah Sulayman and Miguel Legazpi four centuries ago.

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The A.B. Colayco School of Management has been operating for the past 10 months. Its only student is Ben Colayco, president of Level Up! Corp., whose video game, the interactive Oz World, has been developed with a generous P65 million funding from Argosy Partners.

As everybody knows, Argosy is the investment banking baby of Aloysius Colayco, who otherwise runs the Philippine business of Jardine Matheson.

Yes, the 30-year old Ben Colayco is the older of two sons of Nonoy Colayco, who is, by the way, celebrating this year his 31st wedding anniversary.

Level Up! has solved the problem of piracy by giving away the CD. It makes money on the pre-paid cards needed to play Oz World and, possibly, on advertisements placed inside Oz World. To be introduced this year is an interactive "quest" game. (Imagine looking for an amulet or an agimat in, say, Mt. Banahaw with equally wired friends).

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WG&A president Enrique Aboitiz has had to assure the porters of Pier 14 that the company will continue to help them even when it completely moves its operations from the North Harbor to the South Harbor.

As everybody knows, WG&A has leased space at the Eva Macapagal facility of Asian Terminal, Inc., and will, therefore, be dealing with the porters there.

For the past two years, Endika Aboitiz has supported an internally funded program called "Operation Sigla," which provides livelihood training programs for porters and their wives and, in the process, instill pride in their work.

Although porters are not regular WG&A employees, they are the "first line" that passengers deal with.

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Bank notes 1: Philippine National Bank chairman Francisco Dizon was present but president Lorenzo Tan wasn’t at last Friday’s launch of the bank’s priority once checking account which is geared towards high networth individuals.

Then again, Yayi Tan has been on his annual break in New York.

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Bank notes 2: Bankard president Joven Reyes has decided the timing is right to slug it out once more with the big guys. Bankard, a local brand bought by the Yuchengco Group from PCIBank, has had to consolidate its operations with another YGC card franchise, JCB of Japan.