Not seeing eye-to-eye with the boss

Bangko Sentral Governor Rafael Buenaventura is seriously thinking of teaching as one option to keep himself busy during the two years (after his term finishes in June 2005) when he cannot work for any bank or company that has had dealings with the central monetary authority.

Paeng Buenaventura might, however, wish to consult former Finance Secretary Roberto de Ocampo, the first president of the Asian Institute of Management who is not a faculty member and is, therefore, considered an outsider by the people he manages.

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For a guy who intended to resign as Trade Secretary (to concentrate, among other things, on planning his wedding later this year) when he went to see President Macapagal-Arroyo but left the Palace as Finance Secretary, Cesar Purisima seems to be contradicting, big-time, his boss.

Mr. Purisima does not want to raise additional money that government can hardly afford to keep its 41-percent stake in San Miguel Corp. while the President does.

As everybody knows, the President has had a hard time finding a new boss for the Department of Finance. True, everybody and his brother wants to work at the DOF’s major agencies, the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Bureau of Customs. But nobody wants the almost superhuman task of raising enough government revenues through taxes and borrowings to meet the ever increasing expenses of government.

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Here’s an interesting book entitled, "The Chinese in the Philippine Economy 1898-1941", written by Hong Kong-based Wong Kwok-Chiu and published by Ateneo de Manila University Press.

The book includes such business magnates as:

Carlos Palanca, whose name before he was baptized was Tan Quin Lay – The man behind La Tondeña had some pretty quirky names for his products such as Ginebra Rizal, presumably after national hero, Jose Rizal; and

Dee C. Chuan – he inherited the lumber business of his father, expanded it, and then used some of the proceeds to help put up China Banking Co., the first Chinese owned bank in the Philippines.

Interestingly enough, the bank talks a lot about ChinaBank even though no bank officer, including president Peter Dee, was interviewed. Nor did the bank finance the publishing of the book.

Then again, the bank, which celebrates its 85th anniversary this year and which was once the second biggest bank in the country (that was during the presidency of Edward Go), was embraced by the Chinese-Filipino community.

Consider this. Included in its first 11-man board were Albino Sycip (the first ethnic Chinese to practice law in the Philippines and the father of SGV & Co. founder Washington SyCip), Uy Yet (whose company, Mariano Uy Chaco Sons & Co., was then one of the two biggest hardware merchants in Manila), and Guillermo A. Cu Unjieng (who, by engaging in foreign exchange and remittances, became the only Chinese firm to be included in the short list of "most valued customers" of the Hongkong and Shanghai Bank in Manila).