If things pan out, Smart Communications will start selling next year its international services to Italy-based overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). By then, the company would have hopefully worked out the kinks in its proposed Dubai expansion.

Smart’s global expansion in 2008 will be spearheaded by wireless business head Danilo Mojica II, who used to be president of budget airline Cebu Pacific. Hong Kong-based Al Panlilio will, of course, remain the point man of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. chairman Manuel Pangilinan as PLDT Global president. 

Bank notes 1:  Now that Rolando Macasaet is taking further studies in the United States, the officer-in-charge of Postal Savings Bank is concurrent director Bituin Valdes Salcedo.

Yes, yes, Salcedo’s uncle is former President Fidel Valdes Ramos, but hey, she’s the best qualified for the job in the board chaired by former Press Secretary Hector Villanueva.  

Bank notes 2: The invitation comes from the Philippine Export-Import Credit Agency, although Philexim’s real name remains Trade and Investment Development Corporation of the Philippines or Tidcorp.

Philexim is celebrating its 30th anniversary this coming Tuesday. Current president Vic Angelo is hosting and has naturally invited his successor Francisco Magsajo, as well as his predecessors, all three of whom are still alive and well. They are former Finance Undersecretary Victor Macalincag, former Ernst & Young head for the Philippines and Vietnam Joel Valdes, and former National Treasurer Sergio Edeza Jr. 

Bank notes 3: Oops! The old office of Banko Sentral Governor Amando Tetangco Jr. has not been “forlorn” for long. The renovated office is now occupied by Deputy Governor Diwa Guinigundo. 

Bank notes 4: Since this is one of his pet projects, Development Bank of the Philippines president and chief executive officer Reynaldo David is taking time off from his appointment-loaded work schedule to officially start the bank’s version of “The Amazing Race” next Tuesday in Cagayan de Oro.  The first of the 10 teams to reach Global City on December 15 gets a cash prize of P1 million.

Basically, the project aims to showcase the country’s nautical highway (read: using the convenient and affordable ro-ros for passengers and cargoes), which the bank has been financing. In fact, the bank has been pushing the private sector to open up more missionary routes by offering lower-than-market interest rates and longer repayment terms. 

Here are the interesting names of US military bases in Iraq that hire overseas Filipino workers: Camps Victory North and South, Camp Slayer, both in Baghdad; Camp Anaconda in Fallujah; and Camp Freedom Rest in Baghdad’s Green Zone.

The names are listed in a letter by OFW groups dated November 8 and addressed to Vice President Noli de Castro (read: he’s also the government’s go-to guy for OFW-related problems). Basically, the OFWs, who claim to number 20,000, want to make sure that, if they come home this Christmas, they will be allowed to return to their jobs in Iraq.

For their own safety, the government currently does not allow OFWs to work in Iraq. As a result, OFWs take a detour through Kuwait.

CORPORATE regulator Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has given the Gokongwei-led Cebu Air Inc. the go signal to sell shares in an initial public offering next year.

PCTA scores Smart, GV partnership  

THE Philippine Cable Television Association (PCTA) on Thursday said the partnership between Smart Communications Inc. and GV Broadcasting System Inc. was a “nifty way” of circumventing a law prohibiting a phone firm from engaging in broadcasting.

PHILIPPINE stocks Thursday rose for the sixth day, climbing the most in two months, after US productivity and labor data suggested a recession may be averted in the Southeast Asian nation’s biggest market for goods and labor.

TANDUAY Holdings Inc., a listed company controlled by tobacco magnate Lucio Tan, has offered to buy for P85.06 million the 10.66-percent stake of Miguel Ossorio Pension Foundation Inc. in Victorias Milling Co. (VMC).

GLOBE TELECOM asked the National Telecommunications Commission (NTC) Thursday to impose sanctions on Pilipino Telephone Corp. (Piltel) for forum-shopping even as the commission already said the latter is not guilty of it.

If things pan out, Smart Communications will start selling next year its international services to Italy-based overseas Filipino workers (OFWs). By then, the company would have hopefully worked out the kinks in its proposed Dubai expansion.