BIZ BUZZ: UPLB campus to rise in Davao

University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) will soon have a brand-new satellite campus in Panabo, Davao del Norte, the banana capital of the Philippines.

To be called UP Professional School for Agriculture and the Environment (UP PSAE), the school will be built on a three-hectare land donated by the Floirendo family via property arm Damosa Land within the sprawling Agriya agritourism development. It will offer master’s degrees in agriculture and environment.

“They are already doing the classes for this program so we’ve had several graduates,” Damosa Land president Ricardo Lagdameo said.

The site for UP PSAE has been cleared. Aside from donating the land, Damosa is also putting up the first building in the campus.

“We want to make sure that it operates right away,” Lagdameo said.

Agriya has residential, commercial, institutional and agritourism zones. It is where tourists can learn about different types of banana and observe how they are harvested, cleaned and packed for export, capitalizing on the farming expertise of parent conglomerate Anflocor.

“A lot of our executives and employees ended up going to [UP] Los Baños when they want to pursue higher studies,” said Lagdameo.

With UP PSAE just rising around the corner, Lagdameo said the group hoped to keep their executives in Panabo City. —Doris Dumlao-Abadilla

Moving on from Sky-PLDT deal

When ABS-CBN Corp. announced it would no longer sell its unit Sky Cable’s broadband business to PLDT Inc., the parties did not provide specific details as to why.

READ: ABS-CBN, PLDT cancel Sky Cable deal

There were speculations surrounding the aborted P6.75-billion deal but the parties have yet to confirm them. PLDT and ABS-CBN only said certain closing conditions had not been met without fully explaining the reason behind the transaction falling through.

When asked on the sidelines of the PLDT briefing on Thursday, PLDT chief legal counsel Marilyn Victorio-Aquino said it was not important anymore to make further disclosures.

READ: BIZ BUZZ: Why SkyCable sale to PLDT collapsed

“We want to move on from that transaction. We want ABS and Sky to move on,” she said.

“Let it be. The details are not important at this point of time,” she added.

So, now, it appears the market observers will not be given the closure they were hoping for. —Tyrone Jasper C. Piad