In Huddle
Business is brewing in Thailand
By Beth Celis
Inquirer
First Posted 22:42:00 12/12/2007
Filed Under: Southeast Asian Games, Mining
NAKHON RATCHASIMA--EXCEPT for a very few, the Filipinos who booked into the Sabai Hotel are well known in Manila's basketball circles.
PBL commissioner Chino Trinidad, his newly appointed special adviser Joe Lipa, SBP executive director Pato Gregorio, RP team patron Mikee Romero of Harbour Centre and his trusted lieutenant Erick Arejola, coaches Junel Baculi, Louie Alas, Lawrence Chongson, team managers Bernard Yang of Hapee and Baby Oben of Toyota Otis, to name a few, are billeted in the hotel together with members of the Philippine media.
Former La Salle cager BJ Manalo also booked here with his wife and one-year-old baby girl. BJ said he's in Thailand as part of an international religious group that is into sports.
For Pato, who came with his parents, the SEA Games is also a trip down memory lane. Pato's mother worked in Thailand many years ago as a United Nations staff member and she had brought her family with her. Pato was then only a young boy.
Sabai is a three-star accommodation, considered top of the line in this remote area, where life is painfully slow and laid-back, as Baby Oben puts it. So laid-back indeed that my friend Rhea Navarro of Shakey's V-League wanted to turn back as soon as we arrived here that lifeless Saturday at dusk, after four hours of land travel from Bangkok.
Rhea only changed her mind when familiar faces started trickling in from various SEA Games venues later in the evening.
* * *
One unfamiliar face that joined the basketball delegation here is that of Paul Monozca, a Filipino who has been based in Singapore for 15 years.
Someone whispered to me that Paul is known as an international deal maker and wherever he is, there's bound to be a big business transaction.
"He deals only with the wealthiest and the best in a particular country," my informer told me.
Naturally, I got very curious.
What is this guy doing with the Pinoy group in Ratchasima. Who is he with? Is there a big business transaction going on?
I took one good look at the "Dealmaker" one morning. He was dressed in a loose round-necked T-shirt, walking shorts and wore rubber shoes. He was tall, mestizo and probably in his late 30s.
I wondered whether this man could indeed make another person or group richer by billions that quick.
* * *
Not by design, I got to meet the mysterious stranger on my second day in Nakhon Ratchasima, also known as Khorat.
He told me he had been invited by a man he foresees to be in the Forbes List of 50 wealthiest people in the Philippines in two or three years. En route to Khorat, he and this young Filipino businessman stopped over in Bangkok to meet with biggies of Pricewaterhouse Coopers where he works.
This Filipino businessman is well on his way to becoming the Philippines' biggest iron ore magnate, Monozca informed me.
* * *
Although I didn't get here on time to catch RP Harbour Centre's first match against Cambodia, my colleagues said I didn't miss anything.
The game was so lopsided, they said, that an official of the RP delegation snored his way to Dreamland during the court massacre.
RP-Harbour Centre faced Malaysia while I wrote this on Wednesday.
Many consider the game against Indonesia, which we beat by 26 points, as the championship match.
Indonesia earlier beat dark horses Malaysia and Thailand.
* * *
Over bottles of Singha beer and bowls of strange apperitifs, a group of scribes mulled the possibilities of a Philippine gold in the Olympics--if only women's boxing is an official sport.
They all agreed that women's boxing could be a real source of our first Olympic gold. And they based their observation on the performance of our female boxers here who sent six of their seven entries into the finals against Thai foes.
* * *
Speaking of beer, I informed Jon Hernandez, of San Miguel, when he called from Manila the other day, that the drinking group here has been homesick for San Mig Lights.
Could he recommend a place where the group could buy the home-brewed product?
Jon wasn't sure about San Mig Lights, but he said Phuket Beer and Blue Ice Beer, which are both available here, are manufactured by San Miguel Corp.
While Red Horse is sold in stores, Jon said other San Miguel brands can only be bought in bars.
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