NEWLY transformed tech stocks--''mutants'' of the old economy--are betting on the so-called speculative market with their information technology initiatives. Two of the many aspiring tech companies--AJO.net Holdings Inc. and Vantage Equities Inc.--mustered enough guts to take the unknown leap up the corporate evolutionary ladder.

AJO.net Holdings, formerly a mining company, claims to be the first-ever listed Internet company locally. It expressed its serious plans last month to venture heavily into IT-related businesses here and abroad. AJO.net declared it has invested $500,000 in WarpSpeed Communications Inc., a broadband service provider, and $500,000 as well in BiTMicro Networks, a software developer for data storage. Both companies are based in California.

Vivien Vicente, AJO.net associate, said that any business that refuses to go to Internet would be at a disadvantage.

''As of now Internet stocks are outperforming (old stocks). A lot of people think it may be hype--that's what they said in the States when all these Internet companies came out. To this day it's still growing. I actually don't think there is any hype if it's valued properly because in the future I believe that it will all be Internet,'' she said.

Vicente added that the evolution of Internet in the Philippines is influenced by the per capita income of the population. She cited expensive PCs as one factor that hampers the country's involvement in the Internet.

''The economy has to become better, our income has to increase, in order for us to afford PCs. I think we're going to get there. It's just a matter of time,'' she added.

Vicente said that compared to the US, the Philippines is still in its infancy stage in the Internet era. As a result, a lot of opportunities can be created here via the Internet. The three major segments in the industry--access, content and applications--have already established their presence in the Philippines. She said that it was just a matter of developing each segment.

Chito Bustamante, AJO.net technology analyst who is formerly from Silicon Valley, said he was bullish about the tech stock performance in the country. AJO.net, he believes, is on the right track with its ''incubation'' projects. He didn't elaborate which Philippine companies AJO.net is incubating, though he disclosed that there are four local projects.

''We invest in start-up companies in the United States and in the Philippines. As far as our team is concerned, we're trying to address markets that we think are capable of making e-commerce come alive in the country,'' said Bustamante.

Vicente said that despite the BW scandal making many foreign investors take the back seat, Internet stocks have actually outperformed traditional stocks.

''If ever they (foreign investors) would go into the market, they are investing right now in the Internet. So once the scandal is over, and the foreign investors have come in, they'll probably go to the industry where there's the most potential for growth--the Internet.''

On the other hand, Kevin Khoe of Vantage Equities Inc. said that after announcing the company's IT initiative recently, its performance in the stock market shot up from 1.20 to as high as 3.70. He said that it has come back down to 2.40.

''One thing about tech stocks is that they're very volatile. You can expect four days up and four days down. That's a common thing for tech stocks,'' he said.

Khoe said that Vantage Equities is currently in audit with the companies it is buying into-- a 20-percent stake in Nexus Technologies, 47 percent in WS Computer Publishing, 30 percent in Jupiter Systems and 30 percent in Wordtext Systems.

Nexus Technologies is a systems integrator of LAN/WAN (local area network, wide area network), network management and Internet and database systems. It also has stakes in Jupiter Systems (49 percent),

Worldtext (49), Edupro (33), Infonet (33) and IDP (33).

''Jupiter offers enterprise resource planning solutions. The most popular ERP software is SAP, so what Jupiter did was to come out with a much cheaper system, perhaps a fifth of the cost of SAP software. Jupiter System's cheaper since it is locally made while SAP is made in Germany,'' Khoe said.

Edupro, on the other hand, is an IT training center that offers training services for Microsoft and SCO Unix system. Infonet is an online computer book seller. IDP provides online transcription service for doctors. Wordtext is a wholesale distributor of computer software and hardware, and is also a Philippine distributor of Microsoft products.

WS Publishing produces IT newspapers and magazines, among them Computerworld, PC World Philippines, ChannelWorld Philippines and the Web and Click! It owns 47 percent of Yehey.com. Yehey.com, Khoe said, is the main reason why Vantage bought into WS Publishing. Yehey.com, a search engine based in the Philippines, is 40 percent owned by Catcha Group of Singapore.

More tech companies are evolving. And these tech companies, or tech stocks, would most certainly have a wide scope. According to PSE governor Ramon Garcia Jr., a tech company can venture in hardware, software or the Internet arena.

''Basically, Joey Roxas, during his term as listing committee chairman, summed it up the best: You can define a tech stock if you answer the following questions: Would the business have existed before the Internet? If it did not then probably it's a tech stock. If it does, then it's probably not a tech stock," he said.

Garcia said that there are still a lot of emerging tech companies in the country but some of them are not listed yet. Philweb, he added, is still in the transformation stages.