Close call for local Internet users, BPO

Journalist-blogger Raissa Robles has done it again. She dug up a 2003 ponencia of Chief Justice Renato Corona proving Marcos’s ill-gotten wealth via income tax returns (ITRs) and Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALNs). In so doing, Raissa opportunely pointed up two matters to the senator-judges, congressmen-prosecutors and defenders of now impeached Corona. One, Corona’s easy formula to ferret out ill-gotten wealth. Two, his derision for technicalities that distract the court.

Uncannily Raissa revived the forgotten ruling in her My Exclusive blog last Wednesday. It was the same day Corona’s counsels were girding to resist the display of his ITRs and SALNs in trial. That morning in fact, they did convince senator-judges to bar prosecutors from adducing any corruption in Corona’s “undervalued” SALNs. Evidently, the second of eight articles of impeachment that they were hearing was for Corona’s non-disclosure of SALNs. Alleged to have been committed were betrayal of public trust and culpable violation of the Constitution — not graft. This supposedly made the ITRs irrelevant. Issues of procedure and technicalities were raised during the afternoon hearing. After much screaming and wrangling, the senators let the prosecutors exhibit Corona’s ITRs. This made Raissa’s report all the more timely and revealing.

Raissa recapped Corona’s “landmark ruling” turning over to the Philippine government Marcos’s stash in Swiss banks. Highlighted were Corona’s three “interesting points” that:

(1) the burden of proof lies with the person accused of illegally amassing wealth,

(2) the court should disregard technicalities thrown by the defendant, and

(3) it is enough to compare a respondent’s SALNs and ITRs with the wealth in question to determine the illegal origin. If the income and assets are far less than the questioned wealth, then the latter is ill gotten.

Raissa recalled how Corona connected the dots using the SALNs and ITRs of Marcos and his family members. A new justice then, Corona used the official documents to compute Marcos’s true assets. Then he deducted these from the total assets, to show the ill-gotten portion.

Very instructive for the senator-judges, prosecutors and defense were Corona’s words, as cited by Raissa: “A litigation is not a game of technicalities, in which one, more deeply schooled and skilled in the subtle art of movement and position, entraps and destroys the other. It is rather a contest in which each contending party fully and fairly lays before the court the facts in issue and then, brushing aside as wholly trivial and indecisive all imperfections of form and technicalities of procedure, asks that justice be done upon the merits. Lawsuits, unlike duels, are not to be won by a rapier’s thrust.”

At any rate, during the Wednesday hearing, Corona’s ITRs were compared with his SALNs. The prosecutors concluded that his income did not match with the assets. The salaries were much less than the real estate.

Raissa earlier scooped that Corona already had fully paid for his penthouse condo in Bellagio Tower at The Fort, Taguig City. When info leaked to the press about the posh real property, Corona said he was still amortizing it. But Raissa was able to extract an absolute deed of sale, meaning fully paid, for P14.5 million. It was listed in Corona’s 2010 SALN as P6.8 million.

Another recent Raissa exclusive was her interview with Gloria Arroyo’s former justice secretary. That Cabinet member affirmed the government’s right to prevent the flight abroad of a citizen undergoing inquest prior to court indictment. In effect he upheld the barring of Arroyo’s departure for Hong Kong while being investigated for electoral sabotage.

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Two close calls were averted in the US Congress. A bill to bar US firms from outsourcing operations to other lands, and another to curb on-line piracy, would have severely affected the Philippines. Both lost steam this week, to the relief of the business-process outsourcing and Internet industries.

No less than President Barack Obama has been egging US firms to keep in the mainland such operations as call centers and medical or legal transcriptions. His aim is to protect American jobs from being given to foreigners. Had the idea become law, it would have crippled the Philippine BPO trade, which made $13 billion in 2010. Millions of call center agents and medical-legal transcribers would have lost in country jobs and so be forced to emigrate.

The US music and movie industries had lobbied for the other bill to require Internet giants to take action against free downloading of copyrighted material. First to oppose were search engine Google and non-profit info network Wikipedia. Both held daylong switch-offs the other week to demonstrate the horror of government closing down the Internet. Interestingly, free-speech militants found common cause with conservatives, like the tea party and Heritage Foundation, to shout out their protests as well. Both took pains to explain that they do not condone theft of intellectual property. Had the law passed, Facebook-, Twitter- and Internet-crazy Filipinos would have been cut off from each other. Fortunately, the sponsoring senators and congressmen retreated. –Jarius Bondoc