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InterAksyon.com
The online news portal of TV5
Broadcaster Carmela "Mel" Tiangco and her counsel Arno Sanidad were both not pleased having been put in a difficult spot by a Cocktales report Monday about the former TV Patrol anchor having reached a partial financial settlement with ABS-CBN over her 16-year-old labor claim with her former employer.
First, Sanidad and Tiangco had a "gentlemen's agreement" with ABS-CBN not to disclose the terms of the partial settlement.
Second, and more important, Cocktales had wrongly attributed a much inflated settlement figure on Sanidad, when the original question asked of him was merely to comment on the erroneous figure supplied by Cocktales.
Sanidad, reacting to the original Cocktales report, still refused to disclose how much his client had actually received, except to say it was "much smaller" than the P8.3 million that Cocktales had earlier extrapolated.
Judging from the Court of Appeals decision last week, the actual figure may be closer to P4.1 million, although Sanidad said this figure was still "way off the mark."
In that decision, Associate Justices Florito Macalino, Ramon Bato Jr. and Normandie Pizarro referred to the Tiangco-ABS-CBN settlement whereby the broadcaster acknowledged that the Lopez network had already paid her "in full amount" covering the following monetary claims: salaries corresponding to period of suspension, 13th month pay, travel allowance, refund of contributions to ESOP (employees' stock option plan) and signing bonus.
While it is true the financial settlement and the appellate court judgement both did not mention of the size of the Tiangco package, the "full amount" may still be extrapolated from Labor Arbiter Jose de Vera's 1999 decision that was cited by the Court of Appeals.
The De Vera decision enumerated the following figures corresponding to Tiangco's claims: salaries corresponding to the period of her suspension (P1.254 million), 13th month pay (P972,249.66), commutable travel expense benefit for 1994 (P300,000), refund of her contributions to ESOP (P1.1 million), and signing bonus (P500,000).
The above claims add up to a little over P4.1 million.
Unfortunately for Tiangco, the National Labor Relations Commission reversed the labor arbiter, with the Court of Appeals upholding the NLRC reversal. Otherwise, Tiangco, who went on to GMA7 after her suspension to become one of the highest paid broadcasters in the industry, would still be entitled to an additional P4.17 million in separation pay and P3 million in moral damages.
Gatchalian a step closer to acquiring CCP property
Hotelier and property developer William Gatchalian has moved a step closer towards acquiring a 13-hectare government property beside the Cultural Center of the Philippines.
The Court of Appeals last month upheld a Makati Regional Trial Court decision ordering the Privatization Management Office to award to Gatchalian's consortium, led by his listed Philippine Estates Corp., the CCP lot and other related PNCC lands listed in the 2000 bidding.
The Gatchalian consortium submitted the highest bid of P1.228 billion for the PNCC assets, but the bidders, after having submitted their offers, were belatedly told by the government that the indicative price for the PNCC properties was much higher at P7 billion.
While the Gatchalian consortium sued the government for arbitrariness and bad faith, PNCC in 2006 tried to dispose the same properties to Radstock Securities, a company controlled by Cory Aquino-era agriculture secretary Carlos Dominguez, for P6.18 billion, almost P5 billion higher than the Gatchalian bid.
But the PNCC-Radstock agreement was declared void by the Supreme Court in December 2009 for failing to undergo public bidding, among others.
The high tribunal even described the PNCC-Radstock deal as "an anatomy of a P6.185 billion pillage of public coffers that ranks among one of the most brazen and hideous in the history of this country."
Heard through the grapevine
In addition to Chief Justice Renato Corona, another high-ranking GMA official who has a unit at the Avignon condo in Salcedo Village happens to be former House Speaker Prospero Nograles.
Even better, there is a gleaming Audi R8 parked in the Nograles car slot.
Email Vic Agustin at cocktales_tv5@yahoo.com
