Salvador Zamora II’s quiet attempt to turn a distressed telco and a digital-media beachhead into a new platform of influence
In the Philippine business sector, tycoons tend to prefer hard assets: mines, ports, power plants, property, and pipelines. Salvador “Buddy” Zamora II, long associated with mining, energy, and industrial ventures, now appears to be edging into a more intangible but potentially more powerful domain: connectivity, cybersecurity, and media distribution. Through his seat at PT&T Corp., and through the broader Menlo Capital orbit associated with Salvador Zamora and Benjamin Bitanga, he has become linked to two assets that sit close to the nerve center of the modern economy: PT&T, a rehabilitating telecommunications company, and Rappler, a digital-media company in which Menlo-linked interests have been reported to hold exposure.
The temptation is to call this a comeback story. It is better understood as an option. PT&T is not yet a challenger in the mould of PLDT, Globe or even DITO. Its shares have been suspended from trading since 2004, it remains under corporate rehabilitation, and its 2025 balance sheet is still frail: ₱15.0m in cash, ₱1.06bn in current liabilities, a 0.53x current ratio, and an accumulated deficit of ₱11.59bn. Yet the company also reported ₱54.5m in net income in 2025 and positive equity of ₱149.8m, suggesting that the carcass of the old telegraph-and-landline business has begun to twitch.
Zamora’s relevance to the story is not merely that he sits on PT&T’s board. He is part of a business milieu that has acquired and attempted to repurpose distressed or underdeveloped assets before. PT&T’s filing identifies him as a director and describes him as chairman and chief executive of Tranzen Group, a holding company involved in renewable energy, agro-industries, and resort development; it also credits him with establishing Nickel Asia Corp. and serving as president and chief executive of Nickel Asia from 2006 to 2009. MarketScreener likewise lists Zamora as founder of Tranzen Group and Nickel Asia, chairman of several energy, mining, property, and industrial companies, and a director of PT&T.
His method has often involved partners. Tranzen, according to executive-profile disclosures citing PT&T, worked with Carbon Assets Fund of the Cayman Islands to build what was described as the Philippines’ first methane production plant in Rizal. Nickel Asia, the mining company Zamora helped establish, has long had an important relationship with Sumitomo Metal Mining: Manila Bulletin reported in January 2025 that Sumitomo Metal Mining Philippine Holdings held 26.04% of Nickel Asia, while Nickel Asia was discussing the sale of its minority stake in Coral Bay Nickel Corp. to strategic partner Sumitomo Metal Mining. That history matters because PT&T’s own ambitions are too large for its current balance sheet.
PT&T’s plan is not subtle. It wants to become more than an old fixed-line survivor. Its filing says the company intends to expand digital infrastructure, increase its fiber footprint, reduce maintenance costs, and diversify services through both own-build projects and strategic partnerships. It plans targeted expansion in NCR, CALABARZON, and parts of Northern Luzon, with a goal of eventually servicing at least 40% of the Philippine population. It also describes potential additions of 39,800 fiber kilometers for organic expansion and WiFi projects, requiring about ₱1.34bn, and a broader nationwide backbone plan with an additional 51,800 fiber kilometers, requiring about ₱5.79bn.
Those figures reveal the central tension. PT&T dreams in billions, but banks in millions. A company with ₱15m in cash cannot credibly finance a nationwide telco challenge on its own. The likely path, therefore, is not brute-force competition against incumbents but a narrower strategy: enterprise broadband, industrial parks, building connectivity, cybersecurity, satellite internet, managed IT, and partnerships with technology providers that bring capabilities PT&T cannot afford to develop on its own. PT&T’s filing says near-term rollout is focused on industrial parks in CALABARZON, including Calamba Premiere International Park, Cavite Export Processing Zone Authority, and First Philippine Industrial Park, as well as new buildings in Makati, Ortigas, and Bonifacio Global City.
The most interesting plank in this strategy is SecureLink Networks, the joint venture between PT&T and Australia’s Netlinkz. PT&T’s 2025 filing states that SecureLink is engaged in enterprise-grade cybersecurity and managed connectivity, and will serve as a Philippine hub for Netlinkz’s Virtual Secured Network Plus (VSN+). BusinessWorld reported in March 2025 that SecureLink planned a multimillion-dollar technology lab in Makati and that the joint venture aims to combine PT&T’s infrastructure with Netlinkz’s cybersecurity technology. BusinessMirror similarly reported that the lab would localize and scale Netlinkz’s cybersecurity technology for the Philippine market, with SecureLink established in November 2024 to deliver secure connectivity through fiber, 5G, and satellite broadband.
This is a sensible line of attack. The incumbents already dominate mass connectivity. But many Philippine companies do not merely need bandwidth; they need secure, resilient connectivity across branches, remote sites, and mobile teams. Manila Bulletin reported that SecureLink’s VSN+ uses military-grade encryption and secure tunneling, with PT&T contributing telecom and IT expertise while Netlinkz supplies the cybersecurity platform. SecureLink’s own launch materials describe a bundle that includes fiber, 5G fixed wireless access, satellite broadband, cloud services, cybersecurity monitoring, and managed IT infrastructure.
The satellite element is particularly apt for an archipelago. PT&T announced in 2023 that, through Netlinkz, it would sell Starlink services to Philippine customers, including enterprise and maritime users, to reach areas where traditional broadband is limited or unavailable. PT&T’s 2025 filing likewise states that the SecureLink venture will use portable and mobile satellite dishes to deliver high-speed, low-latency broadband with enterprise-grade network security to underserved regions. In other words, PT&T need not outbuild PLDT’s fiber network everywhere; it can instead focus on connecting the awkward places incumbents serve poorly.
The other half of the Zamora-Bitanga story is media. Media Ownership Monitor, a project associated with VERA Files and the Global Media Registry, describes the Bitanga family as ultimate owners of Rappler.com through Menlo Capital Corporation, which owns 99.95% of Dolphin Fire Group, reported as the majority shareholder with a 31.20% stake in Rappler Holdings Corp. Manila Standard reported in May 2024 that senior PT&T executives were moving to the Menlo Capital group of businessmen Salvador Zamora and Benjamin Bitanga, and described the group as including PT&T, MRC Allied, Rappler and other entities. BusinessWorld also reported that PT&T executives were moving to Menlo Capital and MRC Allied, and that MRC Allied’s board had approved the purchase of a 31.2% stake in Rappler Holdings Corp., making it Rappler’s biggest stockholder.
One should be careful not to overstate the media empire. PT&T’s own 2025 filing does not identify Zamora as a beneficial owner of Menlo, nor does it describe Rappler as a PT&T affiliate. It says Menlo owns 37.33% of PT&T and that Menlo’s board decides how its PT&T shares are voted. Public sources, meanwhile, describe Menlo as linked to the Bitanga family and to the broader Zamora-Bitanga business group. The right formulation is therefore not that Zamora personally owns a telecom-media empire, but that he is one of the central business figures around a group attempting to assemble telecom, digital infrastructure and media assets.
If it works, the logic is powerful. Telecoms own the pipes. Cybersecurity secures the traffic. The media owns attention. A group that can combine connectivity, secure enterprise networks, and digital media reach would have an asset mix well-suited to the Philippines, where businesses are digitizing, local governments want better broadband, and consumers increasingly live online. The Konektadong Pinoy Act, as described by PwC, removes legislative franchise barriers for data transmission participants, promotes infrastructure sharing, and encourages faster rollout in underserved areas, which could benefit smaller challengers like PT&T. PT&T’s own filing says the law mitigates uncertainty from earlier franchise-related issues and expands opportunities in data transmission services.
But the caveats are as large as the opportunity. PT&T’s 2025 revenue fell 19.6% to ₱431.2m, active circuits declined to 1,678, and core EBITDA fell to ₱68.9m from ₱83.6m in 2024. Its net income was helped by non-core items, including a ₱42.2m reversal of statutory liabilities, so the headline profit should not be mistaken for a fully repaired operating engine. The auditor also highlighted material uncertainty regarding going concern due to PT&T’s accumulated deficit and its corporate rehabilitation status.
That is why the next act probably requires a strategic partner — or several. PT&T has already engaged a major financial advisory group to raise funds for network expansion and rollout, according to its filing. It has also filed a motion to amend its rehabilitation plan, proposing to sell non-operating assets valued at around ₱528.1m and apply proceeds toward outstanding obligations. The company’s history suggests that balance-sheet repair, capital raising, and partnership formation are not side issues; they are the business plan.
For Zamora, the opportunity is to repeat a familiar Philippine tycoon pattern: take a distressed or underused asset, bring in partners, reposition it around a structural growth trend, and wait for regulation and capital markets to catch up. In mining, his world involved ore bodies, Japanese processors, and industrial capital. In PT&T, the raw material is bandwidth; the processor is software; the strategic partner may be foreign technology, satellite, cybersecurity, or infrastructure capital.
The question is whether PT&T can move quickly enough. Incumbents are not asleep. PLDT and Globe have deeper networks, larger customer bases, and cheaper access to capital. PT&T’s advantage, if it has one, is that it is small enough to specialize: industrial parks rather than the whole country, enterprises rather than everyone, secure networks rather than plain broadband, remote sites rather than already-served subdivisions.
Buddy Zamora’s possible emergence as a telecom-and-media mogul is therefore less coronation than experiment. The ingredients are there: an old telco with a franchise legacy, an Australian cybersecurity partner, a satellite channel to remote markets, a media-adjacent Menlo ecosystem, and a businessman accustomed to strategic alliances. What is missing is capital, scale, and a clean balance sheet. Until those arrive, PT&T is not yet a dragon slayer. It is a wounded animal with a map, a partner, and perhaps, in Zamora, a hunter who knows that the best way to enter a dangerous jungle is not alone.
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Disclaimer: This is for informational purposes and is not investment advice. Figures are taken from company disclosures and exchange data; valuation ratios include the author’s calculations based on cited inputs.
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