Pinuno ng Pananalapi (piˈnuno ŋ paˈnanalɐpi)
Grand Bursar of the Tagápulo Empire
"Money is the greatest illusion ever created, and I am the greatest illusionist!"
Pinuno ng Pananalapi is the Grand Bursar of the Tagápulo Empire. He is responsible for managing the imperial finances, and has managed to keep the Empire wealthy despite the profligate expenditures of Emperor Matatag. His operations have long been marked by secrecy and misdirection, and while he always finds a way to fund whatever it required the exact details of where the money has come from are known only to him; even his most senior clerks are frequently confused by his constant patter and contradictory statements, and despair of ever making sense of the treasury should he retire or die. He is a favorite of the Emperor as he always manages to fund whatever he desires, and has made sure to be an asset to Pangkalahatan Malaking so that the Grand General has no cause to seek his removal.
In the matter of the Imperial succession, Pinuno ng Pananalapi is an ally of Princess Liwayway, and opposes her brother, Crown Prince Haribon. He has long pursued a romantic relationship with the Princess Liwayway as well, but she and others who know of it believe that he considers it a joke more than an actual courtship. For her part, Liwayway puts up with his extravagant flirting but considers it a tiresome prank that will come to an abrupt end when she is Empress.
Early Life
Pinuno ng Pananalapi was born into an aristocratic family who held estates along the upper parts of the Ilog Pasi. At his birth, he was so loud that his mother was convinced he would grow huge to match his voice, and thus she named him for the giant folk hero Pinuno. He was the second son of the family, and was expected and trained to enter into Imperial Service when he came of age. His mother's expectations of his growth were not fulfilled, and Pinuno ng Pananalapi never grew above five foot four inches. However, his voice did grow, and as a child he would often challenge grown adults to try and out-yell him, a contest he has never lost. In desperation his parents hired a singing master to teach him to at least yell melodically, and this was a two-fold success - he learned to sing quite beautifully, and discovered a love of mathematics when he was taught Tagápulo musical notation.
A Student in Mynilad
While he had been tutored in basic mathematics, the connection to his singing lessons was the thing which truly drew Pinuno ng Pananalapi to math and numbers. In weeks he had devoured everything his tutors could teach him, and began correcting errors in their lessons. When it was clear that he had surpassed them, he was sent to study with masters in the capital city of Mynilad (a move which his parents both grieved and celebrated - they missed their joyful younger son, but also had a quiet home again for the first time since he was born).
Pinuno ng Pananalapi took the city immediately. He was a year younger than the Crown Prince Matatag, and was considered so funny and clever that he became a part of the Prince's circle of friends. He was apprenticed within the Bursary, and found the manipulations of money as entertaining as math and music. He also discovered the art of prestidigitation at this time, from performers in the markets, and adopted it as a hobby for life.
He quickly became known as a prankster, and orchestrated practical jokes for the entertainment of the prince and his cohort. At the same time, he excelled in the Bursary, and quickly spotted a number of subtle issues that led him to uncover a scheme of graft on the part of some of the senior tax collectors. When he revealed this scheme to his superiors, he was lauded as a genius (although it is possible that his connections to the crown prince influenced their reactions).
Grand Bursar of Tagápulo
Shortly after he uncovered the tax graft, Pinuno ng Pananalapi became more aggressive about his advancement in the Bursary. He cultivated an appearance of age to inspire confidence in his superiors, and began to work towards making himself indispensable to the department. When Matatag took the throne, Pinuno ng Pananalapi had already become the first clerk of the Bursary, and he leveraged his friendship with the new Emperor to guarantee his appointment to Grand Bursar when his superior retired.
When he did become the Grand Bursar, Pinuno ng Pananalapi began to rework the Bursary upon lines of his own design. He engaged with local merchants in a way not previously common for the empire, and somehow managed to increase the Empire's income without raising taxes, largely through a system of investments and loans. While nobody else seemed able to track exactly where all the money was coming from, the Bursary was able to provide as much money as anyone asked for, and nobody has wanted to cut open the golden goose to find the truth just yet.
When Princess Liwayway began to build her quiet campaign to take the throne from her brother, she immediately targeted Pinuno ng Pananalapi as a necessary ally. She liked the impish Grand Bursar, and tolerated his persistent flirting with her for the sake of the succession. For his part, Pinuno ng Pananalapi has stated in private that she is so much more qualified than her brother that if she wasn't seeking the throne he would have bribed her to do so.
Relationships
Not that Pinuno
While most important people in the Tagápulo Empire are known only by their given name (a quirk of the Pananalita language), Pinuno ng Pananalapi is always referred to with his family name attached. This is because he shares his given name with a Tagápulo folk hero known for his amazing feats of brute strength and many sexual conquests. Pinuno ng Pananalapi often makes jokes about the differences between him and his namesake, lacing most of them with innuendo about a few hidden similarities.
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This article was originally written for Spooktober 2024. You can find all of my Spooktober Articles at Spooktober Central.
This article was originally written for Spooktober 2023. You can find all of my Spooktober Articles at Spooktober Central.
What a fascinating character. I don't want to like him (for some reason - maybe the secrecy around the flow of money?) but I kind of do.
Explore Etrea | March of 31 Tales
Thanks! I was shooting for likable but not trustworthy.