The next SSS chair?

To be on top of the Social Security System these days is a great challenge, given ballooning expenditures following the pension increase approved by President Duterte last year that will slash the pension fund’s actuarial life. While SSS president and CEO

Manny Dooc still manages as incharge of day-to-day operations (and is lobbying for a contribution rate increase before the Office of the President), he needs help and wisdom from the Social Security Commission chair, the post vacated by former UE Law Dean Amado Valdez in February.

So who will be the next SSS chair?

After President Duterte did not renew Valdez’s term, the name of former finance chief

Gary Teves was immediately floated as replacement.

When Biz Buzz reached out to Mr. Teves in February, he declined to comment, only saying that he would respond “at the appropriate time.” For his part, Finance Secretary

Carlos Dominguez III told reporters early last month: “Gary is a good guy—he has had a few stints in the private sector, in legislature. He was president of Landbank; he was also secretary of finance.”

“I think [Teves] is very qualified,” Dominguez pointed out, although he said that the President had yet to ask for his opinion about the matter at that time.

But following former justice secretary Vitaliano

Aguirre’s resignation last week, he was immediately rumored to likely become SSS chair.

Politics.com.ph first reported it last Friday, but at least two other highly placed sources confirmed to Biz Buzz that they’ve also heard of the possibility of Aguirre chairing the state-run pension fund.

Another source, however, noted that it might be a case of just drumming up Aguirre’s name so that when it makes noise, he would eventually really snatch the position.

Curiously, politics.com.ph over the weekend removed that paragraph mentioning the likelihood of the former DOJ chief transferring to the SSS on its story titled “Power play: Find out who eased Aguirre out of office.”

As for the replacement of former SSS commissioner Pompee

La Viña, the name of former Pasig City representative Roman

Romulo immediately cropped up, although a source said he was likely to be instead appointed at the Commission on Higher Education as he had chaired the House committee on higher education during the 16th Congress. Of late, there was buzz that

Godofredo Aquino, special adviser to Dominguez, could take over La Viña’s former post.

Aquino was moderator at the Philippine Economic Briefing in Davao City last month and will again do the same this week in Clark.

We’ve heard that Aquino, who also hails from Davao, is keeping his stint at the DOF low-key, but if ever he’d be appointed at the SSS, it will be a high-stakes job he’ll have in there. —BEN O. DE VERA

Bye Starmalls, hello Vista Malls

It’s a brand that has served the Villar family for a long time, and one that has its own following. But now that Starmalls Inc. has been consolidated into Vista Land and Lifescapes, the Villars are considering to rebrand the existing Starmalls into Vista Malls and use just a single brand for all malls to be built moving forward.

To date, the new malls built by the group are already called Vista Malls while Starmalls are usually the older ones. The Villar family has commissioned a market research, which actually showed that Starmalls enjoyed good branding. Yet it may be time for the brand to retire to give more visibility to Vista Malls.

“It’s not sure but we’re considering it,” said Vista Land president Manuel Paolo Villar.

“It’s an issue of scale. We’re obviously Vista Land. In terms of size, we’re mostly located outside Metro Manila,” he said.

Renaming Starmalls into Vista Malls will immediately boost the latter’s brand. In the Mandaluyong area, for instance, this will give Vista Malls a formidable presence given that there’s an existing Starmall just across the row of massive malls where Shangrila Plaza, SMMegamall and Robinsons Galleria are.

While Starmalls may be unified with Vista Land in terms of branding, however, its listing on the stock market would stay put.

“There’s a reason why Starmalls is listed. There are some corporate issues,” Villar said, adding that the unification of different corporate structures was muchmore difficult than unifying the brand. —DORISDUMLAO-ABADILLA

Shaking up AUB

Manuel “Lito” Gomez, the new president of Asia United Bank, is shaking things up at the Rebisco group’s 20-year-old bank.

Hehas hired a famous foreign consulting firm to look at how AUB can achieve operating efficiency and achieve its dream of becoming among the “top 5” in the local banking industry.

AUB’s new change management consultant is no less than

TomOliver, coach to many of the world’s top CEOs, philanthropists and entertainers, including U2’s Bono, the Dalai Lama, the Rockefeller family and Richard Branson.

This is a bank that’s preparing to compete in terms of digital transformation.

Within a span of three months, it has signed up two of the world’s biggest mobile payments giants: WeChat Pay in December 2017 and Alipay in March 2018. The back story is that WeChat and Alipay initially approached much bigger local banking players but got frustrated when these big boys couldn’t move fast enough. AUB was initially not in WeChat’s horizon but the former proved itself worthy when it was able to develop AUB PayMate to enable the ewallet system in less than four months. —DORISDUMLAO-ABADILLA

Rush job in Boracay

Who is this former environment secretary who reportedly ownsthepropertyonwhich a controversial resort along Puka Beach on Boracay Island is being built?

Biz Buzz hears that it was during his watch as the country’s top environmental watchdog that he secured this property as well as another property for a lawmaker (who used to own an equally controversial resort in Boracay that has since been closed down).

In the case of the Puka Beach resort—even though the current secretary of the Environment and Natural Resources, retired Gen.

Roy Cimatu, said he would reclaim its former glory and seed it again with Puka shells as well as restore the beach’s wetlands on which the resort is being built on—locals have noticed that construction of the resort has been fast-tracked, with work being done 24/7.

Well, they have a little under three weeks to further cement their hold (literally) before the government imposes the islandwide shutdown on April 26. Rush rush! —DAXIML. LUCAS INQ E-mail us at bizbuzz@inquirer.com.ph. Get business alerts and a preview of Biz Buzz the evening before it comes out. Text ONINQ BUSINESS to 4467 (P2.50/alert)