A POWER PLAY in the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) targeting chairman Vitaliano Nañagas II has erupted out into the open.

The immediate cause was supposed to have been a number of representation expenses incurred by Nañagas in 2004 during his official foreign trips.

Nañagas, who purposely absented himself at the other day?s board meeting when an in-house audit report was discussed, could not be reached for comment. What is clear is that someone in DBP has been leaking a 30-page report to the media, apparently in the hope of whipping up an anti-Nañagas sentiment similar to what had caused the latter?s departure from the Social Security System before he headed DBP.

Victoria?s secret trip

THE country?s newest billionaire, lawyer/heiress Victoria de los Reyes, has been in the United States for nearly two weeks now, apparently to take care of any tax and estate complications with the Feds in regard to her sudden fortune.

According to the grapevine, De los Reyes informed her top corporate clients before the Yuletide holidays that she was going on leave to attend to the problems that has befallen her ever since her billionaire aunt, Pacita Ongsiako de los Reyes-Phillips, passed away nearly a year ago.

Ironically, De los Reyes may have caused the troubles herself when the legal ethics lecturer, despite being executrix of her aunt?s fabulous estate, allegedly cleaned out about $400,000 in her aunt?s San Francisco bank account immediately after the billionaire?s death.

What further complicated the closure of the US bank account was that it was the mother account of another US bank account that the late billionaire had set up to support her estranged husband, Dr. Ralph Phillips.

On this latest trip, De los Reyes was apparently trying to arrange a visit to the American retiree in his nursing home in an attempt to amicably settle the court suit he had filed against her and the estate.

In the disputed will, the American husband was completely disinherited by his childless wife for having allegedly abandoned her, with some P2-P3 billion worth of the estate consequently all going to De los Reyes and her lone brother.

But luck was not on the lawyer?s side; the American doctor also passed away on the eve of De los Reyes? US trip, according to the doctor?s counsel, Vicente Chuidian.

Chuidian claimed that De los Reyes had planned to challenge and expunge the doctor?s signed statements challenging his wife?s will on sanity grounds.

Ironically, it is the same line of attack that Chuidian has chosen in an attempt to discredit the disputed will that Mrs. Phillips, an octogenarian like her husband, had allegedly signed on the eve of her death.

Money-go-round

? RETIRED Manila Electric Co. executive Joe Guingona won a Mercedes-Benz B170 when he scored a hole-in-one the other day during the Golden Tee tournament at the Manila Golf Club.

Luckily, the dealer and price donor, CATS Motors, changed its mind at the last minute and had itself fully covered for the P2.25-million SUV.

? ROOM service special: The newest boutique ?hotel? in the Makati business district referred to in Wednesday?s column, Roman Suites on Pasay Road, apparently doubles as a high-end massage parlor.

? PUBLICLY LISTED but hardly traded ATN Holdings is attempting to forestall the return of Clinica Manila to its medical founder, Hernan Delizo, who had won the legal battle at the Supreme Court and the Securities and Exchange Commission against his erstwhile partner, Arsenio T. Ng.

Heard through the grapevine

THE Sys and the Dees have agreed to a new round of shares offering of China Banking Corp. within the year.

E-mail: cocktales_pdi@pldtdsl.net or cocktales_pdi@yahoo.com