Bustling Mandarin Oriental was the meeting spot for our business A-listers when First Life Financial held its Leadership Summit 2011.

Peter Coyiuto, president and CEO of First Life, welcomed top business leaders who have successfully steered their products to become global brands.

Guest speakers included Clinton Campos-Hess, president and CEO of Unilab; Martin Lorenzo, chair, president and CEO of Pancake House Group; and Dr. Vicki Belo, president of Belo Medical Group.

Belo told the audience of her “childhood dream” of “adopt(ing) an advocacy to help people keep a good measure of self-esteem through the enhancement of their physical attributes.”

Coyiuto later led the conferment on financial planners of First Life’s “Million Dollar Round Table” (MDRT) awards. The MDRT is a US-based association of the world’s top one percent insurance professionals.

Meanwhile, the Court of the Table (COT) awards, the next highest citation after the MDRT, were given to Lourdes Yao, Lorna Lao and Alexander Peter Coyiuto. The last received his second consecutive COT qualification on just his sophomore year as a financial planner.

Josie Gotohio, one of First Life’s multi-awarded financial planners and this year’s COT qualifier, made her grand entry to the MDRT Hall of Fame, dahlings.

Gotohio also topped the Producer’s Circle Hall of Fame. Top Producer of the Year award was Lourdes Yao. Platinum awards went to Susan Tan, Teresita Perez, and Lorna Lao while the silver went to Ester Sy, and the bronze to Athena Chua, Ines Ang, Pye Villapando, Rosalie Aslon and Patricia Cua.

Pete commended First Life’s top agents. He likened financial planning “to planning an annual vacation, except that the former is a lifetime journey where one needs to face up to three certainties in life: Dying too soon, living too long and being disabled.”

“Good food from Pancake House provides healthy diet,” Coyiuto added. “Good body enhancement services from Belo Med put people in good shape. Lo and behold, there is only one product in the world that not only shares the advocacies of these products, but also provides the complete and final answer to life’s events. That is life insurance.”

Now more than half a century old, First Life has close to P100 billion in financial protection for over quarter of a million Filipinos. It has distributed more than P2 billion in benefits.

First Life is a member of the Swiss Life Insurance Pool, the world’s largest employee benefits network.

Make life insurance your first priority. Get ahead with First Life.

Legendary feast

Five-star Legend Hotel, with the Legend Villas and Legend Palawan, held Silver Spoon, a treat for its loyal clientele.

Wyden King and his wife, Antonia King, welcomed the invitees to the classy Banahaw Ballroom of the Legend Villas. Ginger Villavicencio and hubby Rami Villavicencio, COO of Legend Villas and Mabuhay Manor, respectively, were busy as a bee entertaining. Ditto with Gerovy King and sister Cheeny King, COO and CFO, respectively of Legend Palawan and Legend Hotels.

Leading the pack of movers and shakers were Bank of Commerce’s first VP Susan Alcala-Uranza; Cebu Pacific’s sales director Gary Cruz; Globe HR’s Learning Delivery big boss Samuel Santos; Nestlé Phils. Inc.’s Allan Jay Paredes and PLDT’s training division chief Rainer Leonardo.

The grand highlight was the presentation of eight new excellent celebrity dishes available at Lola Maria Restaurant of the Legend Villas, palanggas.

Free-flowing chilled Jacob Creek’s red and white wines drowned the great vegetable quiche, fish pinipig, prawn cakes, cocido, garlic and rosemary rib-eye, ensaymada pudding, ube and langka panna cotta, and fried suman with tsokolate.

Penshoppe’s turn

Penshoppe joined Philippine Fashion Week with a bang by putting on a pair of its latest slinky jeans and glitzy cool casual. The fashion pairing was its piece de resistance, which aimed to put Penshoppe a step ahead in glamming up classic separates, dahlings.

“We are highlighting the basics and reinterpreting classic silhouettes,” said designer and stylist Raoul Ramirez, who has put together “myriad ensembles” for Penshoppe’s eye-popping Holiday 2001 collection.

The prints and graphics on the cushy dresses are edgier. Slip into a pair of high-shine boots, so as to make the look totally rock, palanggas.

Or try on a pair of sexy shorts for that casual yet chic air. Or maybe go punk, dahlings, in a leather motorcycle jacket and waxed jeans. “It’s all about your mood, your choice!” explained Raoul R.

Then, there’s the must-have band jacket making a head-turning appearance this season, dahlings. The band, My Chemical Romance, comes to mind when one sees the jacket’s bold shoulders and the unusual adornments that are incorporated, which will surely light up your separates in no time.

The bottom line, dahlings, is rock on!