A Very Special Gift

I am thinking about personalized gift ideas for various types of people that I encounter every year. The task can be daunting so if there is a website that will give me good ideas, it will be much appreciated. 

 In relation to the current impeachment trial, a gift, especially if it brings a lot of monetary value to the recipient is a bribe when the recipient is a government official or an employee in a client company. So if Philippine Airlines has a lot of cases in the courts, it will not be proper for the chief justice to receive a platinum card as a VIP flier of the company. And despite supposed leaks and whatever, it is very unethical and in my strong opinion, criminal to accept millions of pesos worth of discounts from real estate developers.

I agree with Sereno

As I wrote earlier. The Philippine law protecting foreign currency deposits is a bad law.

RA 6426 is a bad law.

What I didn't elaborate due to time constraints is well articulated in Sereno's dissenting opinion on the Supreme Court issued TRO.

It is true that too much secrecy will only tend to protect those with bad thoughts. Very good guys will have a good reason to overly protect their savings accounts.

Overly Secretive Rules Protecting Foreign Currency Deposits

In the United States, a lot of Americans avoided paying taxes on their income and savings hy hiding it in foreign banks. a lot of them hid their money in Switzerland and a few other countries with laws that heavily protects depositors. The thing is, bank secrecy not only protects the common people but also the unscrupulous sections of this planet. Corrupt politicians, drug lords and other crooks are able to safeguard their not so hard earned incomes through banks hiding under secretive bank laws.

Just recently, Switzerland relaxed it's bank secrecy laws and a number of Americans are now negotiating their fines for misdeclaring their incomes. Their Swiss accounts have now been exposed and their cheating days have ended. In the Philippines, there is still an old age minded bank secrecy law that protects the exposure of foreign currency deposits. it will be no surprise thefore, if the country's corrupt politicians and other criminals start converting their peso loot to foreign currencies.

Republic Act 6426, the "Foreign Currency Deposit Act of the Philippines" is a bad law. it tends to protect the criminal more than the decent man.

Remembering the sick girl

I remember when the former president GMA was wheeled to the Ninoy Aquino International Airport wearing a complicated neck brace and what looked like a hospital gown. I thought all along that it’s all she was wearing or perhaps, she had scrub pants on. What really floored me are press revelations later on that she was actually wearing tight leather pants. If she had serious spine problems like she claimed, she would not have been able to wear those tights. I guess, she was planning to discard her neck and back support once in flight and arrive in her destination in style!

Supreme Court TRO is 2nd Envelope All Over Again

The Supreme Court ruling to issue a TRO on the opening of Corona's deposits is nothing less of the 2nd envelope issue during the impeachment trial of Joseph Estrada. In a desire to prevent the opening of possibly incriminating documents, the SC is preventing the impeachment court from finding out the truth.

Corona, I thought there's nothing to hide?

Very Hot

I don’t know how I’ll get my linear bearing because of today’s hottest issues.

The Supreme Court is now under siege and I do not think that it’s undeserved. I’ve always hated plagiarism having been taught in school that it is a sin far worse than murder. However, our Supreme Court protected its own justice who was caught doing precisely that. To make matters worse, they threatened to sanction the lawyers who publicly complained.

Lousy Prosecutors?

My friend Jovi Tupaz, who's a realtor, will probably be better in court arguments compared to the lawyer and house prosecutor Niel Tupas.

However, what he lacks in eloquence, he is able to a bit compensate through end results. The skillful maneuvering of defense lawyer Serafin Cuevas made the procedure lengthy and made the prosecution lawyers look like grade schoolers. But still, the public now knows that Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona has continuously purchased prime real estate through the past couple of decades through installment payments that lasted for only a few months for every purchase. Let's see how Corona will defend this. Does he have enough money to finance those purchases?

Regarding the company where he allegedly borrowed some of the money from, the incorporators are wondering how they could have approved the loan and how did Corona ever paid for it.