ILL-ADVISED: Retired police general Eliseo dela Paz is painting himself into a corner, isolating and hurting himself, by allowing lawyers to decide how he should face inquiries into the 105,000 euros found in his bag at a Russian airport.

On advice of his lawyers, Dela Paz stayed away from the Senate hearing on the hot euros and hid from the fearsome Sen. Miriam Santiago who chairs the committee.

His lawyers supplied him the lame excuse that the committee on foreign relations of Santiago is not the proper body to inquire into his Moscow trip. How did they know what the senators were going to ask?

By throwing flimsy technicalities, his lawyers are getting in the way of the truth. They are not serving his best interest and that of the public.

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FAIRY TALE: Does not Dela Paz feel odd seeing everybody, except him, present? The all-star cast in attendance included DILG Secretary Ronaldo Puno, PNP Chief Jesus A. Versoza, as well as ranking police, immigration, diplomatic, budget and banking officials.

He caused them all that trouble, but he – and he alone — did not show up. He left it to his bosses and colleagues in the service to answer questions on his misadventure.

Dela Paz’s empty chair was testimony enough that the general was afraid to tell the truth and face the consequences. He gave the impression he was still piecing together his Russian fairy tale.

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PESO DROPS: The Senate should also look into the shaky global and local investments of the Government Service Insurance System, more so in the face of reports that the GSIS is having cash flow problems.

The GSIS signed its $600-million investment management contract with ING Investment Management and Credit Agricole Asset Management Ltd. on Feb. 13, 2008, when the peso was 40.95 to the US dollar.

The recent GSIS advertisement on its Global Investment Program used values dated Sept. 30, 2008, when the peso was 47.05 to the dollar. At that rate, the dollar value of its original $600-million investments would have dropped to $523 million. Based on the exchange rate alone, the GSIS has incurred a paper loss.

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BIG LOSERS: At the height of the global stock market meltdown two weeks ago, some of its holdings in its GIP lost more than three-fourths of their value, based on published stock prices.

The biggest losers included the UK-based consumer credit firm Cattles Plc, which lost 77 percent of its value, Singapore-listed real estate investment fund CDL Hospitality Trust (down 71.7 percent), New York-listed Allied Irish Bank (down 73.8 percent) and the Royal Bank of Scotland Group (down 76.2 percent).

Other big losers included Singapore-based manufacturer Hong Leong Asia Ltd. (down 69.7 percent), China Coal Energy (down 65.7 percent) and the world’s biggest telecommunications firm China Mobile Ltd. (down 45 percent).

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BLOODY RETREAT: The GSIS said it had acquired 123 stocks under the GIP, listing them in its advertisement last week. Earlier, it announced that its foreign investing began around April.

A survey of the GSIS stocks showed that the prices of at least 82 stocks retreated in value from April 1 to Sept. 30, 2008 — the cut-off date for the pension fund’s published report — and only 15 stocks registered gains.

During this period, at least eight stocks lost more than half their value, with Cattles Plc performing the worst. Eleven other stocks on the GSIS portfolio lost between 30 and 40 percent, and at least two stocks showed double-digit gains.

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GIP SCORE: What happened to the $600-million GSIS investments managed by ING Investment and Credit Agricole?

* On the $300-million managed by ING: The Dutch (The Netherlands) government has bailed out ING’s mother company, the ING Groep NV, one of the world’s top 20 diversified financial services firms, to the tune of $13.4 billion lost in the global financial crisis.

ING said it expects a net loss of $670 million for the third quarter — the firm’s first in 50 years. At the New York Stock Exchange, ING’s stock dropped from a high of $45.21 a year ago to as low as $9.89 this month.

* On the $300 million investment in Credit Agricole: The French government injected 10.5 billion euros ($14 billion) to Credit Agricole and five other French banks after these financial institutions suffered a beating.

* On the remaining $400 million of the $1-billion GIP:  The GSIS said it would revise its overseas investment strategy, an indication that it has encountered problems.

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MERALCO CONTROL: On the local front, the 1.4-million members and pensioners of GSIS are interested to know, among other things, the status of its investment in the Manila Electric Co. (Meralco).

The market monitor prepared by the Philippine Stock Exchange showed Meralco shares dropping to a month’s low of P43.50. At this price, GSIS’s holdings has a market value of P12.854 billion, which translates to a paper loss of P5.172 billion in less than a month.

Armed with a 36.52-percent share of the total outstanding shares, the government appears bent on wresting management control of Meralco from the Lopez family using proxies.

The game plan was evident in the heavy buying of Meralco shares by the GSIS in the second and third quarters of 2008.

With its strategic stake in Meralco, the GSIS will be in a bind on what to choose –whether to serve its customers/members first or pursue the obsession of Winston Garcia, its president and general manager, of capturing management of Meralco.