Several bombshells were dropped at Monday?s Senate hearing on the Legacy scam by former Legacy officials Carolina Hinola and Namnama Pasetes-Santos. That they trained the public?s eye on the allegedly anomalous practices at the Securities and Exchange Commission was well and good.
However, their testimony came almost two weeks after they, along with several other Legacy officials, were sued by the central bank, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), for syndicated ?estafa,? or swindling, and economic sabotage.
BSP officials said there was no way Hinola or Santos could become state witnesses because of their positions in the Legacy group, and the fact that most of the anomalous activities happened during their watch.
?You can only make them state witnesses if they are the least guilty,? said one official, explaining that they stood above other officials who had been charged, except only Legacy founder Celso de los Angeles in the groups? pecking order.
Both ladies had sent ?surrender feelers? to the BSP in the past, but the regulator ? ever watchful for trojan horses that would turn against them on the witness stand ? decided against it.
?They are actually big players,? the official said, adding that the BSP has its own set of state witnesses who are about to be put under the Department of Justice?s witness protection program. Daxim L. Lucas
* * *
PNOC-EDC sizzles
The stock market ? long obsessed with power retailer Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) ? has, for the first time in over a month, found a new darling in another Lopez-controlled company.
The Lopez group?s geothermal power crown jewel Energy Development Corp. (EDC) edged Meralco out as the flavor of the week, on expectations that yet another white knight was getting onboard, in the style of telecom executive Manuel Pangilinan.
But it?s not the same ally as the Lopezes? new BFF (?best friends forever,? for those of you not in touch with the times) in Meralco.
To recall, the Lopez group?s power generation company First Gen Corp., which earlier acquired a 60 percent of government-controlled PNOC Energy Development Corp. for P58.5 billion, was left to pick up the tab (via costly borrowings) after its European partner Spalmare Holding BV backed out.
According to the grapevine, the new group, which may soon be in bed with the Lopezes in Red Vulcan (the company holding the majority stake in EDC), is a foreign group.
It is also, ironically, one of the Lopez group?s rivals when the government auctioned its stake in the EDC in 2007.
But it?s not yet a shoo-in deal, some observers say, as a large Filipino conglomerate in search of opportunities in clean energy may bid for the stake, too. Doris C. Dumlao
* * *
Medicine man gets ailing bank
Former United Laboratories (Unilab) president and CEO Carlos ?Do? Ejercito has recently been named chairman of the government-controlled United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB).
Ejercito?s new hat comes a few months after he relinquished the helm of the country?s biggest Filipino pharmaceutical firm to Clinton Campos Hess, the grandson of the company?s founder.
As chairman of UCPB, Ejercito will find his hands full juggling the interests of the government (in various incarnations, from those of the Presidential Commission on Good Government to those of Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp.), private parties like the San Miguel block and even coconut farmers.
Ejercito ? along with UCPB president Ramon Sy ? has the difficult and unenviable task of reforming the bank from a multibillion-peso sinkhole of taxpayers? funds back into a profitable institution.
According to our source, Ejercito?s appointment was a consensual choice of the government?s economic team (wink). Daxim L. Lucas
With editing by INQUIRER.net
