Jose Ceralde
9April 2008

 

 

Mr. Rafael L. Oriel, Jr.

I will limit my post to the types of business structure the church according to “Business Law 101” and analyze your three posted link concerning the CBCPNET. I’ll also try to answer your last posting questions. You are the expert on the church and you could do your crusading with Archbishop Cruz without comment from me on his jueteng and gambling minimization programs. So let go back to the business of the church.

Historically, two purposes have characterized Church participation in business: to provide important services to the community that might not otherwise be available, and to provide a reasonable return on the resources of the Church.

Presently here in the US the IRS Section 501 (c) (3) exempts all churches in every state from taxation provided they do not engage in “political or legislative activity.” Churches may be subject to audit and taxation on their church-unrelated business income beginning in 1976.

So base on these two paragraphs above, did it answer your battery of questions in your first two paragraphs on your last post?

As far as your question on CBCPNet and CBCPWorld, I am only dissecting what you posted. CBCPNet managers were bleeding the church dry and as an investor it decided to bail out. An ordinary person would do the same if he found out he had a losing investment.

As what you just said about them losing 190 million then I would surmised that they have no insider information to defraud the other investors and creditors because if they had they would have hidden the money like the managers had done. But that is for the Philippine SEC to find out, is it not?

Look at the SEC registration and the stockholders on your question of the owners of the company. You could research that as fast as you had posted the three links.

On their CBCPWorld decision to join up with another business entity, that to me proves that they believe in their original purpose and that they are more confident in the new partners you quoted.

As far as your question on the name CBCP, if I was the church partner I would go for CBCP since my target market is the church network. But then you will have to ask the marketing experts of SP posters if they agreed with the CBCP branding decisions.

I have enjoyed some of the products of the church from pretzels to European wine made by the monks so to a point I take it on a case by case basis like the CBCP and the internet. I would decide as most people would what the market has to offer.

So if the CBCPWorld is favorable in the stock market, people would invest in it as I would. If you have their prospectuses send it to me and we could analyze its financial potential.

Last statistics we had here in the US was that majority of the people invest in one form or another. Most of their IRAs are invested.

Are your pension invested in the market to find the best return on your nest egg? You’ll have to do a lot of convincing to color it as gambling.

I can not go to the facts of all church business below but as a church expert you heard about them, right?

Churches held stock in war contracts, especially Vietnam. Churches are involved in “leaseback” gimmicks when a business owner sells his business to a church and both make money.

Additionally there are wills, gifts, wineries, cheese factories, California Missions and the sale of religious products, including a price for an audience with the pope! There are fund-railings, pilgrimages, bingos, raffles and lotteries.

This is to say nothing of the sales of the pope’s book, encyclicals and new catechisms, all tax- free. Boys Town (Nebraska) for homeless boys is an example. Their $20 million annual income for 700 boys was exposed (attacked) as a phony appeal.

The religious financial empire is limitless. I did not even have to go to the crusades when banking started.

So you see you can not make a generalization on the business of the church and the personalities that make investment decisions.

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