IQ, EQ, now RQ

Okay, so Lucio Tan was recently seen taking some tests in a hospital. Mr. Tan was with his wife, Carmen, for their annual executive medical check-up.

By the way, Allied Banking Corp. chairman Panfilo Domingo is dead serious about committing some of the cash lying around Mr. Tan’s many companies to helping preserve the Ifugao rice terraces as a national treasure.

P.O. Domingo’s only problem is not Mr. Tan’s approval but the kind of money involved to sustain it (read: the number of zeroes involved every year would not be as shocking if the national government did its job).

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Development Bank of the Philippines chairman Vitaliano Nanagas II has already gotten the cooperation of Bankers Association of the Philippines executive director Lionilo Coronel for the creation of an annual award that would recognize excellence in corporate governance among banks.

The award will be named after either the late Central Bank Governor Jose Fernandez Jr. or the current Bangko Central Governor Rafael Buenaventura.

It was under Jobo Fernandez’s watch that many banks were closed, precisely because the corporate governance mantras of transparency and accountability were not followed by the board of directors of many banks.

In the case of Paeng Buenaventura, well, he has made it mandatory (starting this year) for banks to come with their own report cards on corporate governance.

Anthropologist F. Landa Jocano has his own equation on how to select the best managers.

Aside from intelligence and technical skills or intelligence quotient (IQ), which accounts for only 20 percent of the equation, there is the ability to get along with people or emotional quotient (EQ) and the ability to network or the relationship quotient (RQ).

By the way, Mr. Jocano is coming out with a book on marketing, based on his and his wife’s experiences selling fish in a rural community.

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Did you know 1: Senatorial candidate Amina Rasul has gotten the endorsement of actor Robin Padilla to bolster her campaign.

Ms. Rasul – daughter of former Senator Santanina Rasul, wife of former Finance Undersecretary Romeo Bernardo, and herself a former chairman of the National Youth Commission is – one of three Muslims running for the Senate.

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Did you know 2: Party list (Citizens Battling Corruption or CIBAC) candidate Rep. Kim Bernardo-Lokin has taken the cudgels for the continued implementation of the Barangay Micro Business Enterprise Act of 2002.

Under the law (which was implemented only last year), BMBEs are exempt from paying income tax derived from their business for two years, a privilege the Department of Finance has been sabotaging by telling the treasurers of local government units that they would be getting less from the national treasury if they grant the required certification to BMBEs.

What the DoF fails to tell these treasurers is that BMBEs will continue to pay other taxes like real estate taxes and that the employees of these enterprises will subsequently has more money to spent on goods and services, which will then spur economic activity within the barangays concerned.