A Magical Lopez Memorial Museum Tour
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August 2006 Rina receives Public Service award...p.9 A magical Lopez Memorial Museum tour WHAT does a man do who has a deep love al with treasures from their artistic, liter- tion, and dozens of first-edition books and for the land of his birth and a passion for ary and historical heritage. manuscripts, periodicals and maps. travel, fine art and books? He can amass Indeed, the tycoon’s collection, even by The Lopez Memorial Museum was more finds, grow his collection and be ad- 1960 standards, was impressive. Book- opened on February 13, 1960. Housed in mired among his countrymen as an art col- hunting forays abroad and the guidance of its own building beside the Lopez home on lector of note. fellow collectors I.P. Soliongco (leading Lancaster St., Pasay, the museum’s first Or, as in the case of industrialist and Manila Chronicle columnist) and Alfonso visitors included President Carlos Garcia Lopez Group founder Eugenio Lopez Sr., Ongpin (a descendant of artist Damian and his wife, Cardinal Rufino Santos and he can champion visual literacy and na- Domingo) in rounding out his art collec- Claro M. Recto; the Lopez family was also tionalist scholarship by establishing a mu- tion resulted in scores of Rizal memorabil- out in full force, with the Lopez sons join- ...p.8 seum where scholars, students and ordi- ia, the single largest collection of Lunas ing their parents in presenting the collec- Lopezes in Jaro nary Filipinos can get up close and person- and Hidalgos of any individual or institu- Turn to page 6 Eugenio Lopez-GK Village turnover Lahat ay puwedeng maging entrepreneur ...p.10 2 LOPEZLINK August 2006 Napocor rate hike in Luzon smaller CONTRARY to reports, the calculations on the reported erage generation or basic The actual adjustment to P0.0110 a kilowatt-hour recover from the end-con- power-rate increase in the Lu- increase since the approved generation rate of P3.8966 would include Napocor’s is added to its existing sumer the costs incurred in zon grid would be less than rates were merely added to and to its franchise and deferred accounting adjust- Gram of about P0.4060. producing electricity. one peso, the Energy Regula- the previous ones. benefits to host communi- ment for generation cost The firm’s ICERA in Lu- ICERA, on the other hand, tory Commission (ERC) said Under the correct com- ties charge in order to get through the Gram and the zon would be P0.3687 a represents the recoveries after approving the National putation, the new genera- the power firm’s total effec- foreign-exchange cost un- kilowatt-hour, which will that Napocor must make for Power Corp.’s (Napocor) pe- tion rate adjustment mecha- tive rates. der the ICERA. be added to its previous money it advanced to defray tition for an adjustment in its nism (Gram) and incremen- The ERC said the in- Napocor’s Gram would ICERA of P0.2032. the cost of foreign currency generation charge. tal currency exchange rate crease in the Luzon grid stand at P0.4170 a kilowatt- Gram is a pass-on rev- adjustments resulting from ERC chairman Rodolfo adjustment (ICERA) will would thus amount to only hour after the additional enue-neutral charge allowed fluctuations in the exchange Albano said there were mis- be added to Napocor’s av- P0.3797 per kilowatt-hour. generation cost amounting by the ERC so Napocor can rate. Meralco ‘fuses’ with gov’t for cleanup project MERALCO, together with within a 44-kilometer route, nando, NTC commissioner telecommunication carriers to be jointly carried out by Ronald Solis, and representa- and cable TV operators, Meralco, BayanTel, Philip- tives from the firms involved signed a joint implementation pine Long Distance Tele- also present. plan with the National phone Company, Smart, The project, which was Telecommunications Com- Globe, Eastern Telecommuni- launched on July 17 along mission and the Metropolitan cations Philippines Inc., Des- NAIA Road near the corner of Manila Development Author- tiny, SkyCable and other ca- Sampaguita St. and Airport ity (MMDA) for the pole ble TV operators. Road, is part of the govern- wires clearing operation pro- President and COO Jesus ment’s “Investors Corridor ject. Francisco signed the imple- Upgrade Project” to improve The project involves clear- mentation agreement on be- roads accessed by foreign in- ing or removing unused or half of Meralco, with MM- vestors and visitors. (Maite dead wires and sagging cables DA chairman Bayani Fer- Bueno) FPHC, Benpres join First Balfour to build Parañaque card-making complex First Balfour has been awarded the contract to design and build DZ Card Philippines’s mod- ern 2,300-sq. m. card-making facility near the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in corporate governance study Parañaque City. DZ Card is a full-service plastic cards manufacturer with group headquar- ters based in Thailand. The modern facility will enable the company to manufacture the plas- By Carla Paras-Sison considered five major con- information or lack of it, tic cards in the Philippines instead of importing these from Thailand. Photo shows (l-r) Rey Villar and Anthony Fernandez,First Balfour vice president and general manager,respective- cerns of corporate governance rather than the actual situation ly,with DZ Card Philippines’s Matthias Boehm,Arman Trinidad Jr. and Dennis Matala dur- LISTED firms First Philippine in listed companies: the rights or practice of the companies. ing the groundbreaking rites to jumpstart the construction of the facility. First Balfour is Holdings Corporation and of shareholders, equitable Moreno cited a 2002 McK- slated to complete the project by January 2007. Benpres Holdings Corporation treatment of shareholders, the insey study that put this pre- were part of the latest corpo- role of stakeholders in corpo- mium for proper governance rate governance study con- rate governance, disclosure at 22% for Philippine corpo- Rosy outlook for SkyCable, Home ducted by the Institute of Cor- and transparency, and board rations and 30% for Thailand porate Directors (ICD), a non- responsibility. Independent companies. He suggested the CENTRAL CATV, owner of the Sky- Central CATV focused on improv- profit organization promoting raters used Form 17-A and inclusion of board committee Cable and Home Cable, is expecting ing the fundamentals of the business in corporate governance reform other submissions to the Se- reports in the annual report to profitability in the last quarter of 2006, 2005, with the goal of posting positive and professional corporate di- curities and Exchange Com- increase the perception of from a net cash deficit of P50 million income this year. rectorship in the country. mission, the company’s annu- transparency and accountabil- in January 2005. SkyCable, for example, reduced its FPHC improved its aggre- al report, and the corporate ity for listed companies. “We have seen some improvements in monthly operating expenses by nearly gate score from last year to website as sources of infor- The top five corporate gov- our financial performance. Subscribers are 25% in 2005 by renegotiating program- reach the top 10 from 19th mation. ernance scores among listed up by 5% on a net basis and EBITDA ming contracts to more sustainable levels place last year. It was rated 2nd In a presentation to Lopez companies were garnered by [earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and streamlining operational expenses. among listed holding compa- Group executives, ICD exec- the Philippine Long Distance and amortization] is up 130% from P80 The company focused on quality nies and moved up to the first utive director Jonathan Juan Telephone Company, China- million in June last year to P188 million in subscribers that resulted in improved quartile overall compared to its Moreno said that while corpo- bank, Ayala Land, Petron June 2006,” a SkyCable official said. cash flow with monthly collections 2005 place in the second quar- rate governance has a cost, it Corporation and Globe Tele- The company has about 450,000 growing by as much as 20% in 2005. tile. Benpres, which was rated also presents a sustainability com. Among government- subscribers and with two-thirds of the To generate higher average revenues for the first time this year, proposition because “in- owned and controlled corpo- Manila market as its subscriber base, per unit and achieve full profitability in landed in the second quartile vestors pay a premium for rations, the Development posted its highest EBITDA of P507.2 2007, SkyCable invested in digital sig- and ranked 6th among listed properly governed corpora- Bank of the Philippines million in 2005. nal encryption to reduce signal theft, holding companies. tions.” He added that raters topped the corporate gover- “If the trend continues, we hope to test-launched its prepaid cable TV ser- Using the Corporate Gov- graded the companies accord- nance study with an aggregate achieve profitability by the fourth vice and introduced the premium-tier ernance Scorecard, the study ing to their perception of the rating of 80.62%. quarter of this year,” the official said. cable TV service SkyCable Platinum. LOPEZLINK August 2006 3 A BayanTel SPAN launch to remember IN preparation for the big showcase the product and con- that they still had enough energy launch of SPAN in Tacloban duct on-the-spot demos. for the Big Night. City in Eastern Visayas, At the same time, BayanTel Over 5,000 people came to BayanTel made localized ver- sales executives went around the witness BayanTel SPAN’s sions of its SPAN advertise- different barangays and subdivi- launch that night. The theme of ment and announced its pres- sions accompanied by SPAN the concert was “Ang Laki ng ence through mobile barkers vans with lively barkers. Within Bahay ni Kuya,” which kicked and streamers.