MANILA, Philippines?An official of Philippine Long Distance Telephone Co. (PLDT) said the Yuchengco family did not lose its stake in the country?s largest telecommunications firm even after the family sold its shares in the holding company that controlled PLDT because part of the compensation package involved about 2 million direct PLDT shares now worth P4.7 billion.

PLDT director Ray Espinosa, the counsel of PLDT chair Manuel V. Pangilinan, also disputed allegations that businessman Alfonso Yuchengco was coerced into giving up his stake in PLDT in 1998 by then President Joseph Estrada.

Espinosa said the Yuchengco group ?did not lose its underlying shares even as it sold its PTIC (Philippine Telecommunications Investment Corp.) shares to the group of Pangilinan.? PTIC was then the single biggest stockholder in PLDT.

More importantly, Espinosa pointed out that the package paid to Yuchengco in exchange for his minority stake (18,720 PTIC shares) in PLDT had increased in value by about 80 percent since then.

?As consideration for the PTIC shares, Metro Pacific Assets Holdings Inc. paid and delivered to Y Realty Corp. a compensation package consisting of PLDT shares and cash totaling P2.61 billion,? Espinosa said.

The compensation package was broken down into a total of 2,017,650 PLDT common shares (with a value of P1,085 per share based on PLDT?s closing trading price at the Philippine Stock Exchange on Nov. 23, 1998) plus P424,036,931 in cash premium.

?The 2,017,650 PLDT shares paid and delivered to the Yuchengco group are now worth P4.7 billion based on (Wednesday?s) closing price of P2,330 per share,? he added.

Unsigned statement

Espinosa said these details ?belie the unsigned statement being attributed to Ambassador Yuchengco that the ?2,017,650 PLDT common shares ? were taken from me in 1998.??

He said Pangilinan?s group continued to sweeten the pot for the Yuchengcos, agreeing that the latter?s Malayan Insurance Co. would insure two-thirds of the non-life insurance requirements of PLDT and that Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) would be a major banker of PLDT?arrangements that still continue.

?In fact, Malayan Insurance also handles the property insurance requirements of Smart Communications Inc. and the other subsidiaries of PLDT, and RCBC is now also a major banker of PLDT?s subsidiaries,? he said.

?Whoever circulated the unsigned statement to the press was obviously not privy to the detailed terms of the transaction and to the fact that MVP (Pangilinan) and his group continue to have very good relations with the Yuchengco family and their various businesses,? Espinosa said.

The PLDT director said the ?good relations? between the Yuchengco family and Pangilinan and his group were demonstrated by the fact that Helen Y. Dee, a daughter of Yuchengco, remained a director of PLDT and for the last 11 years since the transaction took place had been part of the slate of directors nominated and voted by Pangilinan?s group. Reports from Daxim L. Lucas and Doris C. Dumlao