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Did you
know 1:
Two weeks into the job and Energy Secretary Angelo Reyes
still has no calling cards to give out. The cards he
seems to have a lot of are those as Secretary of the
Department of Environment and Natural Resources.
Did you
know 2:
The city of Manila isn’t hiring and this isn’t because
Mayor Alfredo Lim is scrimping. Fact is, he can’t.
You see,
before he reported for work at City Hall, all vacancies
(read: civil service positions that he cannot replace)
have already been filled up by his predecessor.
Did you
know 3:
With almost daily police raids, many dealers of pirated
DVDs have readjusted their working hours. Most open for
business just before noon to catch the lunch crowd,
bringing out all the good stuff only after 5 p.m. when,
well, all government offices close for business.
****
In
celebrating its 87th anniversary yesterday, China
Banking Corp. also celebrates the important role that it
has played in helping the Chinese-Filipino business
community rise to where it is now.
Before
the bank was established in 1920, the community raised
credit through xinyong, which is pretty much what young
entrepreneurs do now when they borrow from family and
friends; from private moneylenders, and from remittance
firms. (Yes. the Chinese in the Philippines then were
our version now of the overseas Filipino worker, sending
hard-earned money back to their families in China.)
The man
behind the founding of ChinaBank was Dee Chuan, the
bank’s first president. His descendent, Peter Dee, is
the bank’s current president.
In his
lifetime, Dee, a lumberman, was the equivalent of any of
the country’s current taipans; if not in absolute
wealth, in the respect given him by the community.
At its
incorporation, 500 Chinese entrepreneurs based in the
Philippines bought out 91 percent of the bank’s shares.
The largest stockholder was
Dee’s old friend, Oei Tjoe, a former sugar trader in
Indonesia who had already retired in Xiamen, the
hometown of most Chinese-Filipinos.
The
bank’s first board of directors was a who’s who of the
Chinese community: Dee, Albino SyCip; Uy Yet; Guillermo
Cu Unjieng; Go Jocco; Benito Siy Cong Bieng; Yu Biao
Sontua; Dy Buncio; Carlos Palanca Tan Quin Lay, Vicente
Tamco and Antonio Lim Genco.
Why,
five of the directors were so prominent that they were
also included in the American-released “Pre-War
Encyclopedia Directory of the Philippines”, circa 1935.
Today,
the bank is perhaps the largest commercial bank still
majority owned by ethnic Chinese (read: Henry Sy and the
Dee family) in the country and certainly one of the most
profitable, whatever the background of the stockholders
are. |
