Swiss private banks in RP?

Did you know 1: The original kapuso is Marinduque. The heart-shaped gets only P800,000 annually from the national government and yet all its roads are made of concrete. It also has more classrooms that it has students. Okay, okay, so you can cover the province by tricycle in less than two hours.

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Did you know 2: Someone claiming to be an engineer or some other employee of a telecommunications company sends you to a text message to press #90 or #09 so they can check the system.

When you press these digits, a machine captures the details of your SIM, enabling other people to make calls – charged to you, of course.

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Did you know 3: Some Switzerland-based private banks are seriously eyeing the Philippines as a business process outsourcing center.

Hey, HSBC and Citibank already have regional BPOs here, so why not Swiss banks with their immensely wealthy clientele?

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It looks like Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. will be pushing through with its initial public offering after all.

This time, the tentative IPO date is the first quarter of 2006, by which time Shell would have already fixed its major reservation for an IPO – which is to separate the company that will be publicly listed from its strategic refinery.

Aside from the company running out of reasons to delay the IPO, another factor may be Shell’s revaluation downward of worldwide oil reserves, resulting in lower share prices in major stock exchanges (read: there’s pressure from all Shell units to generate more revenues).

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The wedding of former Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima is still on. It’s going to be held somewhere private (think Palawan) but the guest list has been revised.

Career-wise, Mr. Purisima – who cannot work for the private sector for one year – should take heart from Jose Isidro Camacho.

After resignation as Finance Secretary during the first two years of President Macapagal-Arroyo, Lito Camacho’s career didn’t look like it was going anywhere either, particularly after he criticized government’s widening budget deficit for which he was the major borrower.

Fact was, he was teased for being an endorser of a pharmaceutical company.

Now, Mr. Camacho is doing well enough, thank you very much, to pay for the tuition of three children in Harvard University. You see, Mr. Camacho is vice-chairman of the Asian operation (minus Japan) of First Boston Credit Suisse and the branch head of the Singapore operation (which, of course, is a major money-maker).

Mr. Camacho’s man in the Philippine is Simon Paterno, in whose office at the Development Bank of the Philippines he used to hang out in as Finance Secretary when he was in Makati.