Business Circuit

“Society cannot share a common communication system so long as it is split into warring factions.” –Bertolt Brecht- German playwright and poet. “A Short Organum for the Theater” (1949)

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Right after Sen. Anthony Trillanes surrendered to save lives during that Peninsula attempt to force President Arroyo out of office, the Committee to Protect Journalists met in New York.

The two Filipinos present were lawyer Harry Roque, UP law professor, and Sheila Coronel, Ramon Magsaysay awardee who is on a fellowship at Columbia University.

As expected, Roque was hurling invectives at the Arroyo regime for its efforts to suppress press freedom, calling as the most glaring attempt the arrest of media persons covering Trillanes at the Peninsula.

Ms. Coronel had a different view. She declared that the arrest of media people who were subsequently released after "processing" was "trivia."

Instead of explaining the state of press freedom in the Philippines, Ms. Coronel and Roque ended up exchanging barbs about the incident.

The CPJ must have been amused. Filipino journalists cannot band together in the face of threat not only of suppression of press freedom but of extinction.

The Arroyo government can only succeed in decimating us if we do not put our act together. Which does not mean hating President Arroyo. We have to expose the evil that she does.

GMA as used here is not Gloria Macapagal Arroyo. It is Global Media Arts Network Inc., aka Channel 7. Just when the action at the Peninsula was getting hot and dangerous, GMA 7 packed up and went home at the behest of an assistant secretary in the Department of Interior and Local Government.

Not wanting to miss the action which it did by obliging a minor government functionary, one of its top people in the news desk called up a Japanese journalist friend begging to get Trillanes to talk and make it appear it was Channel 7 he was talking to.

Trillanes refused. The Japanese journalist tried Gen. Danny Lim. He also refused.

Unlike in the old days, newsmen today share stories. But television should be different.

A TV station cannot make it appear it was covering an incident live using a foreign journalist. But there were no cameras to record the event.

Of course, any media organization has a right to be for or against the regime. But it is hypocrisy to make it appear that it is fighting the regime using a foreign journalist. That’s foul.

Philip Gould Brodett, director or former director of Philcomsat Holdings, is a man of means but appears to be one of the biggest spendthrifts one can find.

We have a list of cancelled checks drawn against his deposits in the Bank of the Philippine Islands.

In just one month, from 30 Aug. to 28 Sept. 2007. Brodett withdrew a whopping total of slightly more than P164 million.
Brodett encashed all of the checks in his name except one for P16.092 million which was drawn by someone whose signature cannot be recognized.

The money is presumed to be corporate funds. The withdrawals should be in the name of the corporation. None of the checks are.

In about three weeks from Oct. 2 to Oct. 26, 2007, another P39.883 million was withdrawn by Brodett.

The account, #061-448552-001 with the Bank of PI, is a personal account of Brodett. If the money did not come from Philcomsat Holdings, he might be asked by the BIR the sources of his income and an assessment might be made.

The entry in the books of Philcomsat Holdings was "advances to affiliates" As far as I know there are only two affiliates, in fact mother companies: Philippine Overseas Telecommunications Corp. (POTC) and Philippine Communications Satellite Corp. (Philcomsat).

Last year, total "advances to affiliates" exceeded P36 million. So you think the mother companies received the advances! No. Not according to the records which identified the recipients.

The money went straight to the pockets of PHC officers and a few lawyers, one of whom was paid as much as P6 million.

Who is this Sikini Labastilla? He (or she) was paid P3.74 million from advances to affiliates. And what service did the "outsource PR" perform to deserve the payment of P11.202 million?

There are more than 20 payees. None of them is an affiliate of Philcomsat. How does government which owns 35 percent of the parent company POTC allow this highway robbery?

Suspended listing

The other funny part of proof of thievery in the PHC, which incidentally is not a sequestered firm, is why the PCGG and its officers did not want to list the shares representing increase in capital?

The reason given by Camilo Sabio, former assistant of lawyer Manuel M. Lazaro in the Office of Government Corporate Counsel, is there are pending cases among the stockholders of POTC, Philcomsat and PHC.

He wanted the cases resolved before the listing. Strangely, the PCGG itself has brought to court and to the SEC several cases.

The SEC obliged. The additional shares of 750.5 million representing P750.5 million in new capital did not come from the stockholders but from the parent company.

I can see the reason for not wanting the shares to be listed. The owners of the new shares may sell them all and get money to fight their enemies.

The SEC itself is to blame. If the reason for not allowing the listing of the additional shares is legal complications, why did it allow Oriental Resources, supposedly a nickel company, to have an initial public offering and consequently list the shares last Dec. 17?

There are many adverse claimants to the concession of Oriental Resources.

Sauce for the goose is not always sauce for the gander.