TALK about clout. Development Bank of the Philippines chairman (DBP), Patricia Santo Tomas, and president, Reynaldo David, introduced last Wednesday, the bank’s first batch of 120 nursing scholars to President Arroyo. Mind you, each scholarship covers four years’ worth of tuition, books, dormitory and personal allowances. While generous, the money available to scholars will be just enough for their needs and not also for their families.

The tuition has already been paid in full directly to eight accredited nursing schools so they can use the improved cash flow to improve facilities and purchase better equipment. The bank has also opened savings deposit accounts for each scholar, each of whom has been taught how to use an automated tellering machine to access their allowances.

On a semestral basis, this translates easily to a bank investment of P50,000 per student for four years. The bank is committed to spending P100 million per year for 10 years to fund the nursing education of about 1,200 students coming from the very poor (read: a family income of P150,000 a year, which branch personnel all over the country do a credit check on, just in case).

Mind you, DBP doesn’t expect its scholars to even do business with it once they find jobs here and abroad. What Pat and Rey do expect from the scholars is for them to finish their schooling and pass the necessary government licensing exam.

In contrast, the government has approved one-time loans to about 8,000 needy university students for this coming school year. Offered to incoming seniors who wouldn’t have been able to enroll otherwise, these loans amount to a maximum of P10,000 per student.

****

DID you know 1: Nickel magnates like Manuel Zamora have something to worry about. You see, nickel-ore sales haven’t been too good lately partly because the country’s largest market, China, hasn’t been buying as much as the 9 million tons registered last year and also because world prices are expected to stay at the $8-$10 until 2010.

As everybody knows, China has been shutting down processing plants, in some cases, permanently because they are old and, in some cases, temporarily to reduce air pollution before the Summer Olympic Games.

DID you know 2: An offshoot of the hard economic times is the increase in the number of church visitors at odd hours of the day.

Sunday Mass attendance has also significantly increased although there hasn’t been a rise in collection during such masses.

DID you know 3: There’s currently a dearth of steel-related products in the market and hardware owners are at a loss why. Then again, perhaps steel is channeled directly to construction companies, leaving only a small supply for retailers. The end result is not surprising. Prices have close to doubled since the start of the year.

THE Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) Group said its foreign partners in the $550-million Asia-America Gateway (AAG) cable project should have a say on a proposed policy seeking mandatory interconnection of backhaul networks to all landing stations.

Loadstar Investment shares surge despite losses, deficit

OIL company Petron Corp. closed trading on Friday at P6 in a performance that landed it among the market’s 30 biggest gainers last week.

THE Gotianun-led Filinvest Alabang Inc. (FAI) is spending P5.6 billion to build a four-tower residential community within the 244-hectare Filinvest Corporate City (FCC) in Alabang.

LESS than two weeks after opening its operations in the Philippines, business process outsourcing firm TechTeam Global Inc. announced it bought the parent company of Manila-based Onvaio Asia Services Inc.

FLAG carrier Philippine Airlines (PAL) will increase its flight frequencies to Macau and Singapore.

In a statement, PAL said it will mount flights to Macau every day from the five-times-weekly frequency.

SAN JOSE, Antique—To help lessen dependence on imported fuel oil, Filipino-owned Sun West Water and Electric Co. (Suweco) inked a power- supply agreement with Antique Electric Cooperative Inc. (Anteco) for the output of its planned 8-megawatt (MW) minihydro-power project.

LAST week: Philippine stock prices dropped anew by 3.10-percent week-on-week to 2,739.70 after the government reported a higher-than-expected May inflation figure of 9.6 percent. Another major factor was the decision of the Bangko Sentral to raise its key-interest rates by 25 basis points to 5.25 percent.

TALK about clout. Development Bank of the Philippines chairman (DBP), Patricia Santo Tomas, and president, Reynaldo David, introduced last Wednesday, the bank’s first batch of 120 nursing scholars to President Arroyo.