‘Distorted statements’

Amando Doronila, one of the more perceptive journalists this country has ever produced, has written an “analysis” which was obviously biased against me. (Inquirer, 10/17/11) Since I have a very high regard for Doronila, I am saddened that his “analysis” regarding my current battle with certain senators and with the present DBP management is, in my humble opinion, below his usual standard of journalistic excellence.

Regrettably, Doronila simply repeats the various distorted comments of my detractors in their obvious objective to “get” me.

I also take exception to Doronila’s use of the statements such as, “in an air of braggadocio” and that I “bragged” when I was simply defending myself.

Doronila then goes on to espouse the senators’ illogical accusations against me regarding insider trading.

Permit me to repeat herein my previous published statements regarding insider trading which the good senators continue to ignore. When I bought the 50 million shares from DBP on Nov. 4, 2009 at P12.75, DBP’s cost was P5.07 and they booked profits of more than double their cost. They were therefore happy to sell. I was happy to buy because I felt that the shares were still undervalued and had further upward potential.

It needs to be emphasized that DBP’s selling price and my buying price of P12.75 on Nov. 4, 2009 was the actual market price as of that date. To say that I had a “secret handshake deal” with Manny Pangilinan on the day I bought the shares from DBP and that Pangilinan would buy the same shares from me four weeks later at P21 is simply ludicrous. Pangilinan is one of the most astute businessmen in this country and certainly is no fool. Why he would enter into such a ridiculous agreement with me is simply absurd. The fact of the matter is, the prices of copper and gold continued to rise, and more importantly, Ramon Ang had expressed an interest in buying the Philex shares of SSS, and Winston Garcia had said he had accumulated enough shares to have a seat in the Philex board. These were the two events, subsequent to Nov. 4, that transpired such that toward the end of November, Pangilinan contacted my partner Eric Recto, and indicated his interest in buying. After a few days of negotiations, we closed the deal at P21.

Any “analysis” which purports to say that there was insider trading because I bought the DBP shares with “a secret agreement” that I would resell them a few weeks later to Pangilinan at a large profit is simply saying that I was able to dupe Pangilinan to do such a foolish thing, which is truly an impossibility. In fact, with the price of Philex hitting P29 a few weeks ago, Pangilinan showed that he was the smartest of all.

It is beyond me why so many otherwise intelligent people refuse to see that the good senators have made their conclusions based on hindsight, which is always 20/20 vision. Unfortunately, it appears that Doronila has fallen into their trap.

—ROBERTO V. ONGPIN