Did Congressman Floreindo’s Side Chick Cathy Binag Meddle In Tadeco’s Business?

I’m still recovering from the holy week “festivities” as I write this and of the dozens of stories I heard from vacationing pundits across the Philippine socmed universe, one sticks out.

It has to do with a previous Inquirer article titled “Cathy Binag: GF spat alone did not trigger Alvarez case vs Floirendo” and fellow socmed enthusiast BL says there’s more truth to Binag’s statement than what the article contains.

Going along the same lines as the title of the Inquirer’s title, BL’s theorizes that the spat between Cathy and House Speaker Bebot Alvarez’ alleged paramour actually stemmed from a business deal gone wrong.

BL then asked me to consider this theory of his alongside Cathy’s earlier statement saying, “Personally I know it’s deeper than what is being printed in the papers. It all boils down to greed. Greed for wealth, power and influence.”

Everything else that BL said after that was pretty much speculation but I think it is worth repeating here, if only to illustrate that Filipino political culture is just as devious as the political culture of characters in Game of Thrones.

BL says that Floreindo and Alvarez are long time political rivals who are all too familiar with each other’s tactics. So familiar that both can easily avoid tricks and traps each one sets for the other.

BL guesses that Cathy, perhaps wanting to maintain or  increase her stature before Congressman Tonyboy’s eyes, hatched a ruse to ensnare Alvarez’ alleged girlfriend. He says perhaps Cathy preyed on the naivety of Alvarez’ alleged girlfriend by offering a business deal,  claiming she had influence over Tadeco and that profiting from a deal would be lucrative as well as politically beneficial in many respects.

The thing with such a ruse, BL explains, is wouldn’t matter what Alvarez’ alleged girlfriend did about the offer because Cathy would have the means to propagate her own spin on the whole thing through the news media.

BL explained, “Who knows? The entire game plan might have been for Floreindo to later claim that Alvarez used his alleged girlfriend as the emissary in an attempted to extort considerable sums in exchange for keeping quiet over Tadeco’s grossly unfair land deal with the government.”

“After all, isn’t that how these dirty oligarchs operate?” said BL.

Anyway, as it turns out, there is no way that House Speaker Alvarez could be bought off or intimidated into keeping quiet over Tadeco’s decades old land scam.

As for Cathy, BL says there is word that the Floreindo family members who sit on the board of Tadeco’s mother company ANFLOCOR are not looking too kindly on her at all.

If at all indeed she had hatched the ruse against Alvarez and it backfired (as it monumentally did), she perhaps almost single handedly destroyed the source of Floreindo oligarchy’s wealth.

But of course, these people should be the least of our concerns as they may already have amassed enough money to last them several lifetimes and maybe even stage a comeback later.

What is a cause for worry though are the thousands of banana farmers who will most likely end up with nothing at all if Tadeco folds up. Even granting that they were given some sort of equity in the company, it would be worthless if Tadeco goes belly up.

P. Farol

Writer.