PHILIPPINES SOCIAL SECURITY TO BUY SAN MIGUEL SHRS The Philippines' Social Security System (SSS) is planning to buy eight mln shares in diversified brewer <San Miguel Corp> (SMC), SMC chief financial officer Ramon del Rosario said. He told reporters the government organisation had expressed interest in one seat on SMC's 15-man board and was preparing to invest 800 mln pesos, assuming a purchase price of 100 pesos a share. The shares involved in the proposal were part of the block of 38 mln shares owned by the United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB) and sequestered by the government. The block is split between class A and class B stock. SMC also proposed to sell a further five mln shares to A.N. Soriano Corp, the family company of San Miguel president Andres Soriano, del Rosario said. The shares are worth some 500 mln pesos at recent prices. Del Rosario said the 14 mln B shares in the block which are open to foreign ownership would probably be sold to unidentified foreign purchasers. He said SMC and UCPB would meet later this week to try to resolve disputes over the pricing of the shares. President Corazon Aquino earlier this month established an arbitration panel to settle a row over the disposal of the shares. Their initial sale to Soriano through SMC Hong Kong unit Neptunia Corp was blocked by the Presidential Commission on Good Government. The commission sequestered the stock on suspicion that the real owner of the block was Eduardo Cojuanco, the former chairman of San Miguel and the UCPB and a close associate of deposed former president Ferdinand Marcos.