AMARI Back On Track Not Business As Usual

Manila Times
September 11, 1998
Opinion

BY MARGARET JAO-GREY

BANK notes.  One job offer received by former Philippine National Bank president Peter Favila is to head Philippine Airlines.  Another is to run Allied Banking Corp.  Both PAL and Allied Bank are majority owned by Lucio Tan.  Both companies are also still in the market for chief executive officers. You see, PAL president Jose Antonio Garcia resigned (effective Aug. 1) to move back to San Miguel Corp. at the request of old friend and current San Miguel chairman and chief executive officer Eduardo Cojuangco Jr.  Allied Bank president Frederico Pascual resigned (effective July 1) to become president and general manager of the Government Service Insurance System.

Mr. Favila is said to have turned down outright the PAL presidency although he hasn’t closed the doors to a financial consultancy of some sort.  Although PNB  remains a member of the Tan consortium that bought the majority stock of the national government in PAL, Mr. Favila has never sat on the airline’s board (The national government is entitled to two seats but has been persuaded by PAL vice-chairman and concurrent Bangko Sentral Governor Gabriel Singson to increase the government’s representation to three).

Mr. Favila is, however, a close friend and former business partner of PAL director and Jardine Fleming Exchange Capital Securities Corp. head Luis Juan Virata.  By the way, Buboy Virata’s close working relationship with Mr. Tan is the main reason why the strong rumor Mr. Tan is the buyer of the 2 percent stake in San Miguel held by the Hong Kong-based First Pacific Group has not yet died down.  Of course, everybody knows a 2 percent stake is not even big enough to warrant a board seat, a strategy out of sync with a control freak such as Mr. Tan.  Then again, perhaps Mr. Virata (or Mr. Tan, for that matter) may be warehousing the shares for somebody else.