Philippine Stock Exchange

March 16, 1998 PSE CIRCULAR FOR BROKERS NO. 380-98 March 13, 1998 Philippine Stock Exchange Listings and Disclosure Group PSE Centre, Exchange Road Ortigas Center, Pasig City Dear Ms. Buenaventura : In reply to your fax message dated March 13, 1998 relative to the news article entitled "More layoffs at Filinvest" published in the March 13 issue of Business World, we regret to note that our letter to the Department of Labor was taken out context in subject article. We are sending a letter to the editor of the Business World for the purpose of straightening out some points contained in the aforesaid article. We wish to emphasize that while aforesaid news article refers to certain alleged pronouncement from "an official from FLI", our verification indicated that no responsible officer of the Company was actually interviewed or otherwise gave any statement relative to the matter. LLjur We are pleased to furnish you a copy of aforesaid letter to the Business World Editor for your information and dissemination to your member-brokers and the investing public. Thank you very much. Very truly yours, (SGD.) DANTE T. RAMOS Corporate Secretary March 13, 1998 The EDITOR Business World 95 Balete Drive Extension, New Manila, Quezon City S i r : We refer to an article appearing in the Business World issue of March 13-14, 1998 written by Patricia F. de Leon headlined "More layoffs at Filinvest". We would like to straighten some points. Just like other property firms we have taken measures to make our organization more efficient and more competitive given current market conditions. We have let go of some employees, mostly contractual and probationary. These actions are not being undertaken due to any so called "mistakes last year" as referred to in the article; but as proactive measures to better prepare the company for the challenges that lay ahead. Efforts to maintain efficiency in the organization are in keeping with our obligation to our investors and the greater number of our employees. We have tried to provide alleviation to affected employees beyond the requirements of law. At Filinvest, we value our human resources and have every intention of cutting on other costs and retaining our permanent staff. Filinvest has long been a diversified developer and has in fact concentrated on its core business of socialized housing at the onset of this crisis, (contrary to the article). We believe this valuable foresight contributed to overcoming the slump in 1997. Our viability as a business is not in doubt at all. We are a financially sound company with a cash position of P1.6-B at the close of 1997. However, we are not and do not intend to simply "play it by ear" in 1998. We are taking definite steps toward overcoming the difficulties of the coming year. We continue to maintain a policy of not holding a large inventory. Development and construction have not been halted but in fact continue. In fact, we are scheduled to open several projects for 1998. We hold that whatever steps we take to weather the effects of the crisis will be equitable to all concerned. (SGD.) RICKY DIZON Manager for Public Relations