In high spirits

Asian Spirit celebrated its 10th anniversary at the Harbor Tent of the Westin Philippine Plaza last Friday. It seems Asian Spirit has become very successful considering that the airline will now be flying to Palau three times a week. In the past, the modest company has been servicing missionary routes, but now they’re going international. Asian Spirit chairman and FVR protégé Noel Oñate was in high spirits, especially when GMA arrived to grace the affair. Surprisingly, GMA was called to speak, which was not part of the program. Under normal circumstances, GMA, known for being the Taray Queen would have frowned at surprises like that. But she seemed to be in "good spirits" that night, gamely obliging to speak for a few minutes. In keeping with the spirit of the times, Oñate gave away models of their new BAe 146 plane to selected people.

More pmea controversy

Concerned marketing industry practitioners reacted to the March 21 column item entitled "‘Marketing’ awards" about the alleged questionable practices of the Philippine Marketing Excellence Awards (PMEA), and the ensuing confusion in the industry because PMEA sounds like PMA or the Philippine Marketing Association. Sources disclosed that PMEA was incorporated in January 2005 with a paid-up capital of P12,500 (authorized of P200,000). With a minimum of 1,000 awardees reportedly paying P15,000 as "awards subsidy fee," the company has allegedly grossed about P15 million in its one-year operation. The awardees are reportedly notified by fax and are required to sign a conformer, and if the "awardee" does not accept the "award," the next in line will supposedly get the award. Such policy has naturally elicited raised eyebrows because the second best could not possibly be the most outstanding awardee. The selection of awardees are supposedly based on consumer votes, market surveys and focus group discussions, which would require several months to accomplish considering that there are more than 1,000 product categories covered by the awards, and surveys would cost up to P500,000 depending on the number of respondents. Focus group discussions are also not acceptable sources of research by reputable research organizations and could not be a reliable basis for making "most outstanding" conclusions, the concerned practitioners pointed out.

Pre-need industry marred

Former Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) Chairman Perfecto R. Yasay wrote to Rep. Jaime Lopez, chairman of the House committee on banks and financial intermediaries, urging for the immediate end to the implementation of the Actuarial Reserve Liability (ARL) to revive the pre-need industry. Yasay pointed out that "the concept of ‘actuarial reserve liability’ as a regulatory method for investor protection is unheard of in securities and market regulation. Its application is harmful to the development of the securities market, of which the pre-need industry is an important part. This is precisely the reason why pre-need companies are now seriously on the verge of total collapse." Yasay added that the ARL was designed by opponents of the pre-need industry in order to "weaken the integrity of pre-need plans as a Filipino invention that was winning the competition against foreign products in responding to the basic and urgent needs of our people." It will be recalled that Yasay previously wrote to Lopez accusing Sen. Manuel "Mar" A. Roxas III as the culprit responsible for requesting the USAID to fund the study proposal for a new method of computing the pre-need companies’ liabilities. Known as the Actuarial Reserve Liability (ARL), then DTI Secretary Roxas referred the study to then SEC Chair Lilia A. Bautista for arbitrary implementation. The good senator had been passionately defending the rights of 19 planholders of the College Assurance Plan (CAP) who filed a class suit which was not given due course by the Makati Regional Trial Court. The complainants represented some .00002 percent of the total 720,000 CAP planholders. Pre-need insiders have long suspected that the marring of the pre-need industry through the ARL is part of a conspiracy initiated by a US-based insurance company with a local representative office that wants a big slice of the P200 billion pre-need industry.

Spy tidbiz: Riding in style

One of our Ear-Spies reported that this government official in a controversial agency is riding in style. One of the first things this official did was to buy three cars. One is reportedly for regular use, another is an alternate for number coding, and still another as a spare for picnics in Tagaytay. It is suspected that taxpayers’ money was used. This official has been accused of "lawyering" for private firms, endorsing a "clearinghouse" scheme from the very same people suspected of perpetuating anomalies that has long beleaguered a certain government agency.

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