ABS-CBN’s cash dividend. The board of ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp. approved on March 26, 2008 a dividend declaration of P0.825 per share to stockholders as of April 30, 2008 that will be paid on or before May 27, 2008. The dividend amounting to P635.829 million on 770.702 million common shares will be taken from ABS-CBN’s retained earnings, which amounted to P12.465 billion based on audited report for 2006 or P13.735 billion as of December 31, 2007 if the amount would include P1.27-billion net profit in 2007 which ABS-CBN reported to regulators in a filing posted on the web site of the Philippine Stock Exchange.

By the board, for the board. With its profitability, ABS-CBN can be generous to its board. In a disclosure, the broadcasting conglomerate told regulators that its board passed an amendment to its bylaws “to allow directors to participate in profit sharing and bonuses in such amounts as the board of the directors or a committee may determine.” Over the years, ABS-CBN has been paying its directors P5,000 each for every meeting they attended. “There are no other compensations either by way of payments for committee participation or consulting contracts,” ABS-CBN said in a filing in connection with its annual stockholder’s meeting last year.

Pay and perks. The executive chef is among the five highest paid executives of Grand Plaza Hotel Corp. He, along with the president, two general managers, resident manager, received a total of P19.64 million consisting of salary, P16.038 million; bonus, P3.145 million; and P456,616, other fees. This year, the GPH estimated the group’s compensation at P23.50 million—salary, P18 million; bonus, P3.5 million; and other fees, P2 million. In 2006, the hotel’s five highest paid executives got P20.42 million in salary; P4.023 million in bonuses; and P581,779 in other fees.

Homeowners’ woes. “To our valued homeowners at LBA2: Our office would like to inform you that there is still an irregular supply of water due to some technical problems of our water tanks. We advised you to stock water and we will notify you as soon as the supply will be back into its normal operation.” The advisory, which is quoted in full and unedited, came from Suntrust-owned water-works system that supplies potable water to homeowners of Laguna Bel Air 2, which is part of the Laguna Bel Air project of Megaworld group.

Attention, please. This advisory is being reprinted here for the information of Andrew L. Tan, 58 years old, who controls Megaworld Corp. and Alliance Global Inc., the two investment vehicles which own a number of subsidiaries such as Empire East Land Holdings Inc., and Suntrust Home Developers Inc., which is now the developer Laguna Bel Air. Tan calls LBA his flagship project but recently told regulators only about the good things that are happening at Laguna Bel Air (LBA) 3, where he is still selling house-and-lot packages, he is building there. Perhaps he is no longer concerned with LBA 1 and 2, which have been completed a long-time ago and where most if not all units have already been sold. It is unfortunate that many of the homeowners may now be agonizing for locating their families there because of, among others reasons, the two killings inside the houses at Tan’s flagship project that remain unsolved to this day.

More problems. Now come more headaches for LBA residents. A homeowner, when asked about the size of his LBA lot where his house now stands had this answer: “150 sq m and 10 hectares.” He was of course referring to the property adjacent to his lot without a fence separating his from the huge lot owned by a company not controlled by Tan. The anecdote is intended to emphasize a point: LBA may be so large a project that it should cost a lot of money to develop. But its size is no excuse for an incomplete perimeter fence that allows outsiders free access, scaring homeowners who had thought that they would enjoy peace and privacy when they left Metro Manila in favor of Laguna Bel Air.

Here is the worst: adjacent to LBA east is a property reportedly owned by the Bank of Philippine Islands and partly occupied by squatters (informal settlers is the politically correct term) who use LBA’s unevenly paved road as their dumpsite by throwing their garbage over the fence. This, along with the irregular water supply and other problems that LBA homeowners have to live with, needs immediate solutions. It is only Tan, as chairman and president of Megaworld, and five other top executive officers, who received P22.14 million in 2007, 13.935 percent more compared with P19.432 million they received in 2005, who can ably provide the budget for more amenities and security personnel to prevent the situation—the unsolved killings and carnappings—from worsening.

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The board of ABS-CBN Broadcasting Corp. approved on March 26, 2008 a dividend declaration of P0.825 per share to stockholders as of April 30, 2008 that will be paid on or before May 27, 2008.