SAN Miguel Corp. will not solicit proxies to get the upper hand in the coming election of the directors of Manila Electric Co. in May, its top official said yesterday.

?We are not going to solicit proxies for Meralco,? San Miguel president Ramon Ang said.

?We are not that kind of people. We invested in Meralco because we believed in the company and we support its management.?

Ang said San Miguel had not bought additional shares in the country?s largest power retailer since it acquired 27 percent of it from the state pension fund Government Service Insurance System.

He made the statement even as Meralco?s share price climbed 22 percent to P112 at the close of trading yesterday, the highest since records that date to 1992. The gain comes amid speculation the utility?s biggest owners are accumulating shares to gain control.

Manuel Pangilinan, chief executive of First Pacific Co., described the shares as ?too high,? even as a newspaper reported that First Pacific bought 3 percent of the utility, which is owned 34 percent by the Lopez family.

?This is for control,? said Alejandro Yu, president of R.S. Lim & Co., a Manila-based broker.

?The big guns are buying, the retail guys are awestruck. Those that can participate do, though the general consensus is it?s expensive already.?

Pangilinan?s mobile phone text message calling the shares too high came after he was asked if he was accumulating shares or knew who was.

Hong Kong-based First Pacific is said to have bought 3 percent of Meralco, and Pangilinan is said to have agreed to help the Lopezes? First Philippine Holdings Corp. retain control of the utility against a possible takeover bid from San Miguel.

Meralco told the Philippine Stock Exchange it had not been informed of the ?alleged buyer.?

Ang only smiled when asked if some of his ?friends? had been buying Meralco shares.

If San Miguel gets a proxy from Global 5000, which had earlier acquired 10 percent of Meralco from other financial institutions, the food-and-beverage giant could get 37 percent of the utility and become its single biggest shareholder.

Ang said he was not sure if the rumors about the partnership between Pangilinan and the Lopezes were true.

?The Lopezes are saying that they are not selling and they are not doing anything.?

?There was a rumor that Meralco Retirement sold some of their shares, but we are not sure.?

Ang said he could work with anybody, including Pangilinan, in Meralco.

?He is a good man,? he said. Jenniffer B. Austria with Bloomberg