COCKTALES | Ex-Customs chief to work for father, return to politics

By: Victor C. Agustin

InterAksyon.com means BUSINESS

Resigned Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon is set to join his ex-senator dad, now Muntinlupa Representative Rodolfo Biazon, as a consultant, preparatory to resuming his own career in politics.

This we got from the younger Biazon himself, who had the patience to email back answers to a set of questions, interrupting an overseas holiday with his family.

"For 2014, I intend to be active in the office of Cong. Pong Biazon, particularly in the areas of constituent services and political affairs," said the younger Biazon, who will be turning only 45 in March.

"Having been congressman of Muntinlupa for three consecutive terms (until 2010, when replaced by his dad), it is an area where I know I can help not just my father but my fellow Muntinlupenos as well," he said.

"In addition, it is part of my preparation for future public service plans," he continued. "Public service has become a way of life for me...I see it as my way of doing my part for the country, wherein I take action instead of just talking" (unlike columnists, bloggers and activists, which Biazon did not actually say!).

While in his father's staff as a consultant, the former medical technologist-turned congressman-turned-customs expert said he would help get through the legislative maze his father's pet bill on customs modernization.

Reflecting on his two-year-stint in the front-line revenue agency, Biazon said: "While there is also fulfillment in an appointive position, having the people's mandate is much better. There is more space to exercise your creativity and authority. There is more stability and your accountability is purely your own."

"Unlike being the head of an agency, for example, where command responsibility over the actions of personnel who have security of tenure in the agency force you to be accountable for their actions," Biazon said, hinting at the bureaucratic straightjacket that a commissioner has to grapple with.

"And in those cases, the personnel directly responsible usually stay on (due to tenure) and the appointed official is the one taken to task for his subordinate's actions."

As a sign of the fleeting nature of power and transactional relations, the former Customs chief chuckled at the "minimal gifts" that he received this Christmas, just like in 2010 when he ran and lost in the senatorial elections, spending the happiest time of the year with the immediate family without the throng of constituents and favor-seekers.

Biazon said he and his wife would most likely venture into the retail and food business to help keep his family finances afloat while at the same time he defends himself before the Ombudsman from the pork barrel-misuse allegation filed by the Department of Justice.

Yuchengco gets a lift from Romualdez bloc
Taipan Alfonso Yuchengco may have financed the anti-Marcos opposition leading to the Edsa 1 revolt but nearly three decades on, no less than the Marcos nephews on the Romualdez side are themselves providing his bank with a timely financial lift.

Yuchengco's Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. announced Thursday that it had raised P731 million mainly in previously locked capital after the bank sold its listed Bankard shell company to a company controlled, on paper, by office "neighbors" of the Romualdezes.

RCBC said it sold its 65.425 percent stake in Bankard to RYM Business Management Corp. on December 27, after RYM, which shares office space with Benguet Corp., the listed mining company controlled by the Romualdez clan, gave an "upfront check payment" of P163.58 million.

Shortly before the Romualdez acquisition, Bankard itself had undergone a name change to Bright Kindle Resources and Investments Inc. after disposing of its credit card business and other financial assets to the Philippine Business Bank of Zesto juice drink owner Alfredo Yao.
Bankard is the second listed shell company acquired by the Romualdez "neighbors" after Prime Media, the shell remains of the 1st e-Bank/Producers Bank from the Metro Pacific Group.

"The sale of the Bankard listed legal vehicle was part of RCBC's capital raising/capital release program so as to comply with the new Basel 3 capital guidelines effected January 1, 2014," RCBC said in a statement.

The transaction allowed RCBC to exceed the minimum core equity tier ratio of 8.5 percent and the minimum total capital adequacy ratio of 10 percent, the bank added.

The transaction will also allow RCBC and RCBC Capital, which owned another 24.5 percent of Bankard before the sale, to recognize a combined net gain of about P123 million.
In all, P731 million that will accrue to RCBC, representing the bank's share in the book value of Bankard and the gain in the latter's sale.

Yuchengco, incidentally, also owns about five percent of Benguet Corp. through various companies, with investment banker Luis Juan Virata representing the taipan in the mining board. 

Money-go-round
• Speaking of the customs bureau, Biazon's predecessor, P-Noy's first customs chief Angelito Alvarez, has been quietly working under the media radar for over a year now as Philippine Airlines' cargo chief, having been in the cargo forwarding business long before his customs appointment.

• Former Manila Golf Club president Rodolfo Cuenca and the present board have decided to let go of the bitterness of the past and amicably settle their lawsuit over a golf club cart contract initiated during Cuenca's term.

Even club godfather Macario Te, himself advancing in years like Cuenca, is said to have given his blessings to the settlement.

• Philippine Star columnist Wilson Lee Flores is living his "will soon flourish" email address and starting the 2014 right by acquiring, before Christmas, majority control of the pre-war Kamuning Bakery from the founding Javier family.

Flores earlier purchased the Pansol retreat of former Senate President Jovito Salonga and a moribund Caltex station in Meycauayan, whose business promptly revived with the help of Flores' sister, who with her husband is into trucking business.

Heard through the grapevine
Newly-resigned P-Noy messaging chief Ricky Carandang will not return to ABS-CBN or head the privatized Channel 9, as had been reported, but will most likely join a non-media outfit with excellent government ties.

The former broadcaster did not "wander the ends of the earth," as Malacanang spokesman Edwin Lacierda had so craftily dodged, but actually contemplated his future over the holidays from atop a penthouse with a private roofdeck garden in The Fort, in the arms of another hot broadcast personality, no less. 


E-mail: cocktales_tv5@yahoo.com

http://www.interaksyon.com/business/77929/cocktales--ex-customs-chief-to-work-for-father-return-to-politics