Ramon Ang has Caticlan, Lucio Tan has Kalibo, ferry to Boracay
Former Philippine Airlines partners Ramon S. Ang and Lucio Tan are now competing for, or dividing, depending on how you view it, the lucrative Boracay tourist market.
Tan will commission tomorrow two brand-new Dutch-built catamarans that will ferry mainly foreign passengers from Kalibo International Airport straight to Boracay when the worldfamous island resort reopens later this week.
The ferry service will take 1.5-hour each way, operated by PAL subsidiary Mabuhay Maritime Express Transport, which also developed the two jetty ports at each end.
Even better for faster passenger connection, the Kalibo airport will expand closer and will literally be right next to the jetty port after the current 2,500-meter runway shall have been lengthened to 3,000 meters to accommodate bigger planes.
Even before that happens though, Tan has already secured approval from the provincial government to reclaim and extend the seashore by 120 hectares, on whose new land will house the expanded port, hotels and call-center buildings, according to sketchy reports from the provincial media.
Apparently the taipan has something more up his sleeve other than hotels and call-center buildings given the size of the reclamation, which, by way of comparison, dwarfs the 92-hectare Makati central business or the 70-hectare Iloilo Business Park of taipan Andrew Tan.
As a testament to the size and scale of the project, the taipan has hired no less than the Jan De Nul Group of Luxembourg to undertake the Aklan version of the parting of the sea.
Over in Caticlan, the San Miguel Group, besides operating the airport, plans to control as well the passenger delivery pipeline from the tarmac literally right to the powdery white beaches of Boracay.
As RSA disclosed earlier, the San Miguel Group has submitted an unsolicited bid to the national government to build a 1.1-kilometer toll bridge to link the island with the Caticlan aiport.
In addition to carrying the water, sewage and power pipes underneath, the planned bridge promises to be an attraction in itself given its scale and the provision for a combined pedestrian-and-bicycle lane.
Cook outranks Forbes Park heiresses
This female cook must have some secret sauce that she now lords over a vacant Forbes Park house that even the eldest heiress has had to first ask permission before she can visit the family home that the heiress grew up in.
The eldest of six children, the Forbes Park heiress had earlier been vanished from the family home by her ailing father after she protested at how the female cook had, how do we diplomatically put it?, become too familiar with her widowed dad.
The patriarch passed away recently and the heiress, who had been reduced to living in a condo in a flood-prone section of Buendia, thought she could move back to her old room in the Forbes Park home.
Lo and behold, her younger brother, who owns 20 houses for rent in Forbes and Dasma, upheld the cook, restricting her entry to the family home to what amounts to as a supervised visit.
Another younger brother, who married well and spends a good chunk of his semi-retired life travelling overseas, has taken the side of the brother.
The two boys now control the vast family estate, including that of their late mother’s, whose money actually bought the Forbes Park home and the adjoining, still vacant lot.
Fortunately for the two boys, the Assumption nuns and the Sodality of Mary had done a good job instilling in their ate that the meek shall inherit the earth.
Speaking of inheritance, the Forbes Park heiress has three other sisters, all living abroad, with one also under reduced circumstances, staying in a subsidized home for the aged in Las Vegas.
According to the grapevine, the latter has been pining to spend the rest of her remaining years in the home that the siblings spent with so many happy memories with their late mother, but could not because the cook has now become the boss.
Heard through the grapevine
Sen. Grace Poe will preside over a public hearing this morning over the fast-tracked franchise application of port and casino operator Ricky Razon to take over the retail power distribution business in Iloilo City from Panay Electric of the Cacho clan.
Incidentally, Poe already declared as early as May that the Cachos may lose their pre-war franchise when it expires in January “if they will not improve their services.”
Today’s hearing has been buried in the Senate calendar, the now hot-issue having been subsumed within the third telco agenda under the generic cover of “HB 8302,” referring to the house bill sponsoring the Razon takeover.
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