Power play within Duterte inner circle

Davao del Norte lawmakers Antonio “Tonyboy” Floirendo Jr. (2nd District) and Pantaleon “Bebot” Alvarez (1st District) are known to be longtime friends. Those in the know claim that the political rise of Alvarez can be attributed to his friendship with Tonyboy who is widely acknowledged as the one who strongly recommended for Alvarez to become House Speaker.

Tonyboy is heir to the late Antonio Floirendo Sr., known as the legendary “banana king” for building the country’s biggest banana empire. The Floirendo family is among the richest in the country, known for their closeness to President Duterte. Davaoeños say it was the late “banana king” who bankrolled the 1988 mayoralty bid of Duterte who was then going against the late Zafiro “Zaf” Respicio who was appointed by Cory Aquino as Davao City OIC following the 1986 EDSA Revolution.

On many occasions, the President – who reportedly served as legal counsel to the older Floirendo before throwing his hat into the political ring – would express his admiration for Tony Sr., praising him for his hard work in turning the Philippines into a major banana exporter. Over the years, President Rody and Tonyboy developed a close friendship. In fact, the latter was one of those who strongly urged the then-Davao City mayor to join the 2016 presidential race and was the biggest campaign contributor, saying he donated P75 million to the Duterte campaign kitty out of “brotherly love.”

Bebot Alvarez, on the other hand, is of more humble beginnings. He finished Political Science at FEU, obtained his law degree from Ateneo, was with the staff of then-senator Wigberto Tañada and then worked his way up to assistant manager at the Manila International Airport Authority in the mid-90s before going into politics. In 2001, he was appointed by former president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo as acting transportation secretary, a position he held for a year and-a-half.

 Since they are both Mindanaoans coming from the same province, it’s not surprising that Tonyboy and the Speaker would also become good friends. However, it looks like the party mates are now on opposite sides of the fence. The Speaker recently filed a resolution that seeks to investigate the 25-year lease contract between the Floirendo-owned Tagum Agricultural Development Company (Tadeco) and the Bureau of Corrections for use of the Davao Penal Colony’s 5,308 hectares of land as a banana plantation.

According to Alvarez, the joint venture agreement is grossly disadvantageous to the government because Tadeco’s guaranteed payment of P26.54 million per year (which includes fees for land lease and profit sharing) is a very small fraction of prevailing rates as this is only equivalent to about P5,000 per hectare.

Several sources say the growing rift between the Mindanao congressmen stemmed from suspicions on the part of Bebot that Tonyboy had been pushing for former president and now Pampanga Rep. Gloria Arroyo to replace him as speaker. Insiders from Congress claim that several legislators are not too happy with the “bulldozer tactics” of the speaker, saying he does not have the necessary people skills for consensus building to advance the legislative agenda of the President. It can be recalled that Alvarez stripped a dozen lawmakers of their committee chairmanships for not supporting the death penalty bill, among them GMA who was ousted as deputy speaker for Central Luzon.

Insiders told Spy Bits that Tonyboy is thinking of gunning for the position of Speaker himself, with the recess in Congress an opportunity to “reach out” to other lawmakers.

For sure, people are wondering about what’s happening inside the Duterte inner political circle. Could this be the beginning of the breakup between the Congressional allies of the President?

The other super rich Filipinos

Following our March 23 column item titled “14 super rich Filipinos,” we received calls from some friends who were complaining why they were not included in Forbes’ list of the world’s dollar billionaires, while others asked me, “Why was I included in that list?”

We also received several emails that gave a list of the “other super rich Filipinos” whose names should have been mentioned by Forbes, among them the Zobel de Ayala family. The Ayala Corp., chaired by Jaime Augusto, is the oldest conglomerate and one of the largest in the Philippines with a record P26 billion net profit last year, up by 17 percent from 2015. Actually, the wealthiest in the clan would most likely be siblings Iñigo and Mercedes “Dedes” Zobel (who also have shares in San Miguel). They are the biggest stockholders of the Ayala Group since there are only two of them, with Iñigo technically the biggest shareholder since he has full power of attorney from Dedes.

Aside from the Ayalas, the other wealthy individuals/families are Lucio and Susan Co (estimated net worth $1.5 billion) of the Puregold chain of groceries with interests in gaming, hotels and wine distribution. The Aboitiz family (estimated net worth $5 billion) has stakes in energy, banking, food, property development and recently acquired majority stake in Lafarge Philippines.

One other individual whose name has never been included in Forbes’ list of billionaires – but who many Filipinos believe should be among the top – is Manny Pangilinan of the MVP Group with varied interests in telecommunications, mining, power, healthcare, water, infrastructure and media, among several others.

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