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No,
Ortigas & Co. Ltd. Partnership (OCLP) didn’t name its
latest project “Aqua Verde” because its deputy chief
operating officer Joey Santos is from De La Salle
University and real-estate division general manager
Cathy Co is from Ateneo de Manila University. In truth,
Aqua Verde combines OCLP’s lucky color (read: Greenhills,
Frontera Verde, Green Meadows, Valle Verde) and the
ideal color of Marikina River, which skirts half of the
property in Quezon City. And, yes, the property has good feng shui, with the river in front and
the mountains behind.
Although
the project is not really huge at 12 hectares, only 30
percent is set aside for 12 to 15 high-rise residential
buildings. The rest will be open spaces for children to
play in and adults to take in the fresh air. Hey,
there’s even a dog park so neighborhood dogs can, well,
get to know each other.
****
Did you
know 1:
MasterCard International insists that bank-issuers don’t
have their offices on the ground floor. This way, people
with evil in their minds will have a harder time
stealing in bulk the blank credit cards that cost about
P300 each (read: these cards are not made locally for
obvious reasons).
Of
course, this requirement poses logistical problems for
bank issuers since some of the MasterCard-approved
equipment are humongous.
Did you
know 2:
Forget talk that China will finance the
multibillion-dollar Laiban project in Pangasinan that
will hopefully supply Metro Manila with water by 2016.
It seems the government will get the money elsewhere.
In the
medium term (read: starting now until 2010), the
government is rehabilitating two aqueducts to improve
water supply to Metro Manila and one of the two private
concessionaires, Manila Water Co. (MWC), is fixing and
expanding its Rodriguez pumping station. Interestingly,
MWC has reduced its water losses to between 21percent
and 23 percent so far this year, significantly lower
than the industry average of 25 percent within Asean.
Did you
know 3:
Perhaps because of continued public perception and
experiences of poor branch service, Bank of the
Philippine Islands’ Aurelio Montinola III responds very
quickly to letters of complaints.
Hey, he
also accepts telephone calls. Okay, so his secretary
does. But the complaints are referred to the departments
concerned and solved within a day, because Gigi
Montinola has this unnerving habit of asking for
feedback from his people.
****
So,
Philippine Overseas Employment Administration the (POEA)
head Rosalinda Dimapilis-Baldoz thinks the “decking
system” imposed by 17 accredited medical clinics
processing workers to the
Middle East is harsh. Unfortunately, the POEA isn’t going to do
anything about it because it’s an arrangement between
employers in the
Middle
East and local clinics.
Basically, the accredited medical clinics charge
recruitment agencies P2,700 per applicant. That fee
covers a second medical examination should the applicant
fail the first one. If the applicant breezes through the
first examination, there is no reimbursement for the
second examination that didn’t take place.
And
then, there’s the issue that all accredited medical
clinics are based in Metro Manila. This means that
applicants based in the Visayas and Mindanao will have
to make sure that they are here in Metro Manila, no ifs
or buts about it, when their medical exams are
scheduled. |
