Biz Buzz: Rogue employees
THE PHILIPPINE Stock Exchange (PSE) has had some bad eggs on its plantilla—just like alleged investment scam perpetrator Jose “Jay” Cecilio Peñaflor—whose footprints have hounded the local bourse to date like the Ghost of Christmas Past.
“I’m very proud to say that in the PSE, those guys we’ve found to be stealing money from us, small amounts or big amounts, are not employed by us,” PSE president Hans Sicat said, referring to “another individual” who recently sued the PSE for illegal dismissal.
Sicat was referring to the former head of PSE’s capital market development division, Leonardo Garcia Quinitio, the former head of the PSE’s capital market development division who was dismissed in March 2013 for alleged “falsification of documents, fraudulent expense claims and undocumented arrangements.”
It was earlier reported in this space that Quinitio’s camp had long suspected that it was Peñaflor who had framed the former to cover the track of the latter.
In a rejoinder, however, Sicat said the reference to having been framed up was “a little bit surprising.”
“What he was fired for was basically him claiming fraudulent expenses on his own, without Jay’s help. It’s not a big amount—a couple of tens of thousands of pesos—but it was large enough in the sense that you should not be doing that,” Sicat said.
Back to Peñaflor, Sicat said that based on an interim report that the PSE was set to submit to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) last week, this former employee was operating a “Ponzi” scheme. Under such scheme, the operator pays initial disciples with the amount invested by subsequent investors. Bulk of the investment remains with the scammer, whose motto in luring investors is “the more, the merrier.”
“So far, it appears that Jay and his cohorts were not really passing trades through the exchange—not with the money of the investors. It’s like a Ponzi scheme that they were doing,” Sicat said. Doris Dumlao-Abadilla
Naia Expressway
IT HAS been reported that the government’s delay in resolving right-of-way (ROW) issues has taken it longer than originally expected for the San Miguel group to build the Ninoy Aquino International Airport (Naia) Expressway that will seamlessly link all airport terminals. As such, traffic bottlenecks at the roads leading to the airport these days could infuriate even the most patient motorists.
But all the ROW issues have now been settled and a “partial solution” can be achieved by June—or by May, at best. According to project contractor DMCI group, the 2-km phase connecting Naia terminals 1 and 2 to Pagcor City could be completed by May or June. (This means that there’s a chance that outgoing President Aquino could still inaugurate a partially completed tollroad before he steps down from office.)
The next phase of the elevated tollroad, another 2-km road linking Naia Terminal 3 to Pagcor City, will likely be completed by October.
As the ROW kinks have been ironed out, the only remaining issues pertain to underground cables and utilities affected by all the digging required to put up this infrastructure project. These underground issues are likewise expected to be resolved in a few weeks’ time.
Once completed, the P15.86-billion project is seen to benefit 80,000 travelers a day and reduce travel time from the Skyway to Terminal 1 from 24.3 minutes to 8.2 minutes. Doris Dumlao-Abadilla
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