PAMPANGA Rep. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and her husband Mike on Monday were hounded in their tony Four Seasons hotel in Hong Kong by Bayan militants based in the Chinese territory.

It was not clear how the Filipino activists had discovered where the Arroyos were staying, but about 20 showed up by the driveway of the luxury hotel in the Central district around 8:30 a.m. Monday, according to reports from Hong Kong.

The hotel security tried to shoo the placard-waving group, but decided to allow the protesters to chant and work out their hatred for half an hour when they moved to the sidewalk until they peacefully dispersed.

The Filipino militants are based at the nearby St. John’s Cathedral, using the Anglican Church’s ministry work for domestic workers as springboard to advance their left-wing causes.

One of the organizers was identified as Cynthia Tellez, the same St. John’s-based social worker who, way back in 1988, organized a picket of Filipina maids timed with the visit of then President Corazon Aquino to protest—this is true—the presence of the American bases in the Philippines.

The consul in charge of dealing with the Tellez group at that time, because of her gender and remarkable patience, was Elizabeth Buensuceso, now the ambassador to Norway, Denmark and Iceland.

Even Hong Kong-based Filipino journalist Juanito Concepcion, who has a soft spot for maids, tried to get into the groove. He managed to invite Tellez to dinner at the Ned Kelly’s jazz bar but recoiled after smelling that the female organizer had links with the National Democratic Front.

HIS leveraged drive to build the country’s largest Filipino-owned hotel chain has found William Gatchalian in the firm financial embrace of taipan George Ty and Puregold’s Lucio Co.

And it looks like it is Ty and Co who are leading Gatchalian in this financial tango.

Gatchalian will report next month to his shareholders that his two Waterfront hotels in Cebu have had to borrow nearly P827 million last year from Co’s Cosco Prime Holdings for a hairraising 16 percent interest a year—equivalent to P11-million interest payment a month.

Here’s the kicker: The loan is payable in a year.Gatchalian, who controls four other hotels including the Davao Insular and Fort Ilocandia, had to run to the goateed Co to stave off a foreclosure threat from the Philippine National Bank on his two Cebu hotels.

With PNB off his back, Gatchalian then knocked on taipan George Ty’s Philippine Business Bank for another P300-million facility so as to raise P400 million last February and this time to stop Co from foreclosing and becoming 60-percent owner of the two Cebu hotels.

Having paid off half of Co’s loan, Gatchalian managed to buy time and stretch repayment on the balance of P426.5 million for another two years.

In return, Gatchalian executed a second mortgage on the Mactan hotel, which adjoins the international airport, in favor of Ty’s bank. The taipan, incidentally, owns the Marco Polo Cebu.

WHAT potion could have passed between the developer of Xavierville Subdivision and his son that even after their deaths, the heirs of the son still pursued a criminal complaint against the dead patriarch?

The Supreme Court the other week threw out four counts of falsification of commercial documents originally filed in January 1999 by Antonio Ramos against his father, Emeterio Ramos Sr., and his trusted assistant.

In addition to Xavierville, the Ramoses during the height of the business powers in the 1960s controlled the (now shuttered) Overseas Bank of Manila and Travellers Life Assurance.

Ramos Sr. passed away in June 1999 at the age of 92, barely six months after the son sued him; it was not clear when his son Antonio, who had acted as Xavierville general manager, died.

But even in their deaths, Antonio’s heirs kept the litigation alive, despite the Quezon City prosecutor having already backtracked and withdrawn the criminal complaint.

Antonio’s heirs—Ma. Margarita Ramos, Antonio Ramos, Ma. Regina Ramos de Dios, Jose Vicente Ramos, Ma. Pomona Ramos Ko Teh and Oscar Emerito Ramos—had hoped to win some properties in North Susana and North Olympic subdivisions in Quezon City that were supposed to have been bequeathed but later taken back by the Ramos patriarch.

To make a long story short, the Supreme Court ruled that the late patriarch and his assistant, Rogelio Escobal, could not be held criminally liable in rescinding the deed of assignment and making alterations on the stock certificates of the family corporation since son Antonio failed to comply with the prestations required of him under the deed of assignment.

Moreover, there was no evidence whatsoever that the assignment of the shares, covering the disputed properties, were ever recorded in the company’s stock and transfer book, the high court noted.