Pangilinan maintains hold over PLDT board

A defiant Manuel Pangilinan has won the first round in the battle for control of the Philippines' largest telecommunications company as he, chairman Antonio Cojuangco and 11 others were unanimously re-elected to the board of Philippine Long Distance Telephone (PLDT).

Mr Pangilinan is on both sides of the fight as PLDT chief executive and the executive chairman of First Pacific, which has struck a US$616.6 million deal to sell its controlling PLDT stake to Philippine tycoon John Gokongwei.

Mr Pangilinan was coy on Tuesday about his reported plans to launch a management buyout of PLDT. However, it was not so much his prepared statement to almost 1,000 PLDT shareholders at the company's annual general meeting as his actions afterwards that underlined his opposition to the deal with Mr Gokongwei.

The Pangilinan-Cojuangco alliance took the battle out of the board room and into the streets following the meeting. PLDT employees picketed the Dusit Hotel where the meeting was held, shaking placards saying 'We Love MVP' - Mr Pangilinan's initials.

Mr Pangilinan, Mr Cojuangco and Taketo Suzuki, the representative of Nippon Telegraph & Telephone (NTT) - which owns 15 per cent of PLDT - all mounted a flat-bed truck to show themselves to the employees.

'We are with you,' Mr Cojuangco shouted to them.