Senate panel wants man behind Ongpin's stock transactions pinpointed

The Senate blue ribbon committee will try to find out who is the man supposedly behind businessman Roberto Ongpin and his multimillion-peso transactions in the shares of stocks of publicly listed companies. In an interview with reporters, Senator Sergio "Serge" Osmeña III said that Ongpin could not have predicted on his own that the shares his companies will buy will go phenomenally higher. In 2009, the Development Bank of the Philippines granted P660 million in loans to Ongpin's company Delta Venture Resources Inc. (DVRI). The loans were used to finance the acquisition of Philex Mining Corp. shares at P12.75 apiece which DVRI later on sold at P21 per share. "Bobby Ongpin is not big enough to be able to get that kind of information and all that and be able to buy those shares at that price," Osmeña said. "There has to be a “B" behind the behest. That's what we are going to find out," he added. Osmeña, chair of the Senate committee on banks, financial institutions, and currencies, said Ongpin's other companies also bought Manila Electric Co. (Meralco) and Petron Corp. shares — using loans from the DBP — and then sold those shares at higher prices. In Ongpin's deals in the shares of stocks of those companies, the share prices rose in a phenomenal way, the senator said. "(He made deals in) three companies that were the subject of takeovers na nag-triple ang price (ng shares)," he said. But asked if Ongpin's close friend and former First Gentleman Mike Arroyo could also have been involved in the deals, Osmeña said they could not tell. "You will never establish that in this hearing," he said. On the other hand, he said he is open to inviting businessman Manuel V. Pangilinan, chairman and CEO of Meralco to the Senate probe. Pangilinan bought the 50 million Philex shares from DVRI. "The only question I'll ask him is 'Manny did you ever talk about buying at P21? And when did you talk (about) this and to whom did you talk (to)'," he said. Ongpin earlier denied that there were irregularities in his transactions.— VS, GMA News