MANILA, Philippines—The lawyer of Manuel V. Pangilinan Monday said the businessman’s takeover of the country’s largest telecommunications firm 11 years ago was aboveboard.

In a statement, Ray C. Espinosa said he acted as legal counsel of Pangilinan and First Pacific Group in connection with the purchase of PTIC shares from various shareholders, including the group of Alfonso Yuchengco.

“The sale and purchase transaction was a commercially negotiated deal; the purchase price was at a premium above the then stock market price of the underlying PLDT shares,” Espinosa said.

He said the purchase of the PTIC shares of the Yuchengco group was made on Nov. 24, 1998, and not in August 1998.

After the sale and purchase agreement was signed in November 1998, it had to be amended and supplemented to increase the purchase price further since the stock market price of PLDT shares had increased and the Yuchengco group wanted to preserve the agreed premium, Espinosa said.

“MVP (Pangilinan) was amenable to this increase as being consistent with the spirit of the pricing for the deal,” said Espinosa, who is also a director of the firm. “This clearly shows the full commerciality of the transaction.”

He added that since the completion of the sale and purchase transaction, Pangilinan and PLDT have had good relations with the Yuchengco group.

“For the last 11 years since MVP took over PLDT, RCBC, a universal bank owned and controlled by the Yuchengco Group, has been a major banker of the PLDT Group,” he said.

“For the last 11 years too, Malayan Insurance, an insurance company owned and controlled by the Yuchengco Group, has been the property insurer of the entire PLDT Group.”

Helen Y. Dee, a daughter of Yuchengco, remains a director of PLDT and the MVP Group has been fully supporting her election to the PLDT board every year, Espinosa said.

“These are the facts, and it can be easily gleaned from these facts that the transaction was above board,” he concluded.

The Philippine Daily Inquirer tried to contact the Yuchengco group for their reaction, but it had yet to make a statement as of press time.