IF you are planning a lifelong career in corporate wage slavery, you can not go wrong in choosing the Ayala Group of companies.

Despite the global financial meltdown that now threatens to drag the bottom line of many Philippine companies, Ayala Corp. still plans to increase this year the compensation of both its top and middle-level executives.

The publicly listed Zobel holding company saw its 2008 profit plunge by 44 percent to P10.658 billion; nevertheless, the 14 top management officers, led by chairman and chief executive Jaime Augusto Zobel de Ayala II, will see their collective compensation, excluding bonuses and stock options, to rise this year by 10 percent to P197 million.

Their expected combined bonuses, however, will shrink to P45.7 million, from P64.44 million last year, translating even to a slight decrease in their combined salary-plus-bonus package for this year.

The same financial re-arrangement will trickle down to the middle-management ranks as well. According to an Ayala Corp. statement to the shareholders, the Zobels intend to increase their combined salaries to P264.79 million from last year?s P240.72 million, notwithstanding the storm clouds in the economic horizon.

But, then again, the mid-management bonus package is expected to shrink to P61.49 million from P89.65 million last year, which should result in actually reducing the mid-management pay and bonus package to P326.28 million from last year?s P330.37 million.

Money-go-round

? George SyCip, aka the son of Washington SyCip, has been elected chairman of Alliance Tuna.

? Jollibee continues to attract, and even amuse, the New York press with its first East Coast outlet in Woodside, Queens.

?The landing of Jollibee practically inspired riots of joy,? noted the Village Voice, before the food reviewer sniffed at the offerings.

The New York Times, meanwhile, described the spaghetti as ?frighteningly addictive? while the deep-fried peach-mango pie ?at once a Filipino thing, a Georgia thing and something else entirely,? before ending the short review with a forgiving, ?It?s worth the wait.?

? Bingo Bonanza?s Albee Benitez, cash-flush from his bingo and online gaming ventures, has been bitten by the political bug and will run for mayor in Negros Occidental, where his mother, New York-based investment banker Joanne de Asis-Benitez, hails.

? Stephanie Reese, the Seattle-based Filipina-American singer who starred in Miss Saigon in Germany, is performing tomorrow night at the Marco Polo Cebu.

Heard through the grapevine

Lucio Tan?s younger brother Mariano Tanenglian has taken an unstructured holiday to seriously consider retiring from the Lucio Tan empire and take a less-demanding position in his wife?s real estate business.

(Web site: www.cocktales.ph; E-mail: cocktales_mst@pldtdsl.net)