Biz Buzz: Customs car caper

A notorious Batangas contractor has bought the bulk of the P100 million worth of luxury cars seized by the Bureau of Customs (BOC) at the Batangas port last Aug. 5.

A Buzzard told us that the Batangas contractor, who built a fortune from padded road construction projects during the Arroyo administration, was dejected when he heard that the shipment of the smuggler in religious robes was intercepted for gross undervaluation.

The Batangas contractor was particularly saddened that his coveted 2004 Mercedes Benz CLK DTM AMG was part of the hot cars impounded by the BOC.

The Benz super-car, worth 500,000 euros or P25.38 million, was declared a brand new C200 with a blue book value of 27,500 euros or P1.4 million. There are only a few hundred CLK DTMs in existence, of which only three are in the Philippines.

The Benz super-car would have been a centerpiece in the Batangas contractor’s garage showroom, which includes a Mclaren 450C, Ferrari 458 and more than a dozen vintage 993 Porsches.

The Batangas contractor apparently did not give up on his beloved car as he instructed the smuggler in robes to use two equally notorious customs brokers to “fix” the problem—a Chinese national and a trader involved in diamonds, foreign exchange and Bureau of Internal Revenue receipts.

But our Buzzard tells us that the BOC has foiled this bold attempt to sneak out the luxury cars whose seizure had been widely reported in media. Let’s see if the BOC will stand firm or fold to this corrupt contractor and gang of fixers and smugglers.–Gil Cabacungan

Cable news upstart

A lot of things are happening in the Philippine television industry—the latest of which involves the airing of Bloomberg TV Philippines via Cignal TV next month.

This was announced during the recent trade launch of Bloomberg TV Philippines, in partnership with the group of businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan’s TV5.

That means Cignal TV subscribers, which are projected to hit about 2.5 million by this year’s end, will get access to what’s being branded as the country’s first 24-hour business channel.

Bloomberg TV Philippines did its trade launch in a glitzy affair this week, with big bosses of Pangilinan’s group, of course, Pangilinan himself, in attendance as well as some key Bloomberg officials.

As with many new products these days, the new channel claimed it would “change the landscape of Philippine television.”

Surely, some of the competition has taken notice.

ABS-CBN Corp., which also has its own longer-running business channel ANC via Cignal rival SkyCable, held its  quarterly briefing on the same day and hotel venue as the Cignal-Bloomberg TV event.

Its group chief financial officer, Rolando Valdueza, noted that while ABS-CBN remained confident because of its higher ratings, it planned to soon “relaunch” ANC, which he said would have more local content.

“People still want local content,” Valdueza said, while keeping mum on the specifics.

How these individual TV strategies pan out should be interesting, but safe to say, we’ll be, uhm, watching these closely.–Miguel R. Camus

Wanted: airport privatization regulator

In the mad rush to shed the “worst airport” tag of the country’s premier gateway, the privatization of the operation and maintenance (O&M) of Naia and key regional airports through private public partnerships is now underway.

Although viewed as a step in the right direction, airport, airline and tourism stakeholders believe there’s an urgent need for strict government regulations over private O&M operators to promote and protect consumer welfare.

An impartial government regulator, they said, is needed to install safeguards to protect both consumers and airport concessionaires against any acts by private O&M operators that may be considered “abuse of substantial market power” or “anti-competitive behavior.” Necessarily, these safeguards should include protection against arbitrary and unreasonable cancellation of existing airport concession contracts that may lead to unreliable service and higher costs that, eventually, would be shouldered by the traveling public.

For inspiration, the Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) could review and adopt existing regulatory policies for airport operators in Australia, England and Germany, among others. The benefits of regulating airport O&M operators would likely outweigh its adverse impact in the long run. Calling Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya!–Daxim L. Lucas

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