Author: Ed Lingao

BIR files charges vs. another Ampatuan lawyer

Ed Lingao Leave a comment

THE BUREAU OF INTERNAL REVENUE slapped yet another lawyer linked to the controversial Ampautan clan with tax evasion charges, the second such lawyer to be charged for the same offence in just two months.

Internal Revenue Commissioner Kim Henares identified the lawyer as Atty. Redemberto R. Villanueva, who was found by the BIR to have a total tax liability of P 37 million pesos for the years 2010 and 2011.

Key to the tax case against Villanueva is his purchase of a large house in ritzy Dasmarinas Village, Makati for P 58.47 million in 2010, Henares said. Henares said the BIR finds it strange that Villanueva could afford to buy such a house when he only paid P110,788 in income taxes for the same year. Henares said the income tax that Villanueva paid for that year was far out of proportion to the amount of money he spent for the purchase of the house in Dasmarinas.

“We looked at the expenditure method,” Henares said. “If you have all that money to spend, then you generated an income for that year.”

Interestingly, the house in question has been placed under a provisional asset preservation order or PAPO by a Manila court, after it was included by the Anti Money Laundering Council as among the assets allegedly belonging to former Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao Governor Zaldy Ampatuan, who is one of the accused in the 2009 Maguindanao Massacre.

zaldy house

The AMLC claims that the Dasmarinas property is one of at least 162 properties illegally acquired by members of the Ampatuan clan using government funds. The AMLC had also filed a forfeiture case against other assets in the name of Atty. Villanueva, in the belief that Villanueva was holding these assets for Zaldy Ampatuan.

Sources of the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism had also revealed that the Dasmarinas property was regularly used by Zaldy Ampatuan whenever he traveled to Manila.

In addition to the Dasmarinas property, Henares said Villanueva purchased a parking slot for the Eisenhower condominium in San Juan for half a million pesos in 2010. This was unusual, since Villanueva would not buy a condominium unit in the same building until the next year, Henares said. It was only in 2011 when Villanueva would buy a condo unit in Eisenhower for P2.56 million.

Also in 2011, Villanueva bought another property in Eastwood Lafayette for P 2.62 million. Yet while he had the money to purchase these two condominium units, Villanueva would only pay income tax of P 3,723 for that same year, Henares said.

All in all, Villanueva has  a tax liability of P 36.93 million for those two years, she added.

Henares said that the BIR was not targetting Ampatuan lawyers, as the Bureau is not even certain if Villanueva is representing the Ampatuans in any of the court cases. However, she acknowledged that the investigation into Villanueva was triggered by reports that he was responsible for purchasing the Dasmarinas house for the Ampatuans.

“That was what triggered the investigation, that it was his (Ampatuan’s) house, and that there was a sale, and a sale was made to the lawyer,” Henares said. “Pag nagbayad naman ng tamang buwis ang abugado, wala namang problema. Ang problema, pag hindi nagrereport ng tamang income na sapat para bilhin ang bahay na ito.”

(If the lawyer had only paid the right taxes, there wouldn’t be a problem. The problem is that he did not report the correct income sufficient to make the purchase.)

Villanueva was the second lawyer linked to the Ampatuans to be charged for tax evasion by the BIR.

Earlier in December, the BIR also filed tax evasion charges against Atty. Arnel Manaloto after it found that the income taxes paid by Manaloto were inconsistent with his purchase of 8 properties previously owned by former Datu Unsay Mayor Andal Ampatuan Junior. The PCIJ earlier reported that Manaloto purchased the eight properties from Andal Jr for P 20 million.

Manaloto is a lawyer for Andal Jr. in some of his cases. More interestingly, the eight properties in question were to have been the subject of a civil forfeiture case by the government – until Manaloto bought them from his client.

Comelec to pols, parties: New year, new politics

Ed Lingao Leave a comment

NEW YEAR, NEW RULES. So get rid of all those old bad election habits.

It’s a warning issued by the Commission on Elections (Comelec) to all  politicians, political parties, and local and national candidates running in this year’s midterm elections as it prepares to fully implement and enforce the rules on campaign finance.

In all the decades that Filipinos have been trooping to the polls, this will be the first time that the Comelec will be turning a serious eye on the issue of campaign finance. In all previous elections, the issue of campaign finance, or the dynamics between campaign expenditures and the results of the elections, has only been given token observance.

These issues include the use of state resources for campaigning, the identity and amount of campaign donations, the restrictions and the limits for campaign expenditures, and the quality of the reportage of these donations and expenditures to the Comelec. The Comelec has so far been unable to enforce the laws on campaign finance because it has been so busy with the administrative burden of ensuring peaceful and honest elections.

But with the recent creation of an ad hoc campaign finance unit within the Comelec, the poll body says it will start giving more attention to campaign finance beginning with this year’s elections.

In fact, Comelec commissioner Christian Robert Lim said the campaign finance unit intends the 2013 elections to be a pilot run of sorts for the 2016 Presidential elections, when the contributions and expenses are expected to be much greater.

“We are looking at 2013 as the institutional step going to 2016 and future elections, to start plugging loopholes,” Lim said during a campaign finance seminar-workshop sponsored by the Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism (PCIJ).

The workshop, which brought together several stakeholders including political parties, the Comelec, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, civil society organizations, and the media, was aimed at getting the stakeholders together to discuss all the issues related to campaign finance that had previously been either of no interest to all but the apparently most obsessive.

This interaction is necessary if all the stakeholders are to have a greater understanding of both their rights and obligations any elections, said PCIJ Executive Director Malou Mangahas.

Lim said the campaign finance unit is hardly fully equipped to do a thorough audit, with only 12 full time lawyers who are also tasked with other jobs in the Comelec. As such, Lim said the unit is looking at a graduated enforcement of the campaign finance rules, so that the Comelec would be better prepared once 2016 comes around.

“We still have a lot of changes to make, but it is a first step in changing how politicians and candidates approach the elections, by not doing it in the traditional level anymore,” Lim said.

183_6126

During the workshop, both the regulators and the regulated were invited to raise all the questions and concerns they have regarding campaign finance. For example, representatives from some of the attending political parties expressed concern that that some of the current campaign finance rules that have so far been unenforced were really impractical and impossible to implement fully.

At the same time, some television and radio executives said the Comelec did not have a full understanding of how the broadcast industry works. This understanding is necessary if the Comelec is to enforce either the airtime or the spending limits for political advertisements, which are often exceeded by candidates.

Interestingly, several broadcast executives took the initiative to set a conference with Comelec officials in order to brief the poll body on what really happens between the broadcast networks and the political candidates during the election period.

Lim welcomed the initiative, and said the seminar-workshop on campaign finance is an important signal that all stakeholders are now willing to confront an issue that for many years has been considered too complex to deal with.

At the same time, Bureau of Internal Revenue Commissioner Kim Henares announced that the BIR would also be seriously looking into campaign expenditures and donations as a means to check whether both campaign donors and candidates have been reporting their income taxes accurately.

This, after the PCIJ noted that some of the biggest donors in the previous elections never seem to crop up in the list of the country’s biggest taxpayers, even though they seem to have all the money and goodwill to spread around during election time.

Henares said the BIR will be carefully scrutinizing the campaign donations and expense reports to see if they tally with the BIR’s own list of taxpayers.

All candidates and political parties are required by law to submit a statement of contributions and expenditures (SECE) to the Comelec after the elections. While winners regularly submit their SECE for fear of disqualification, the Comelec has never had the opportunity to audit and validate the reports for accuracy.

Henares said the BIR will cross check the contribution reports with the bureau’s own list of income tax returns to see if the big contributors have been declaring income in proportion to their donations. Henares and her deputies gamely took part in the campaign finance workshop in order to answer questions related to taxes and the elections.

“We can compare the expenditures by candidates and the ITRs. We are looking at that as one of the areas of cooperation with the BIR,” Lim said. “If we can’t get you by election laws, maybe we can get you by tax laws, like Al Capone.”

Henares also reminded all businessmen that they need to pay taxes for income generated from election activities. Economic activity normally spikes during the election season, as candidates splurge on campaign materials and paraphernalia and spend millions for campaign advertising.

For example, Henares said that the average gross domestic product for 2010 would have just been “four or five percent.” However, the enormous spending during the 2010 presidential election pushed the GDP up to 7.6 percent.

“If the campaign finance reform or mechanism is put in place, it will make people more responsive in reporting whatever income they generate,” Henares said.

“We want to avoid the situation where the basis for a candidate’s winning his seat is because he is the most moneyed,” Lim said. “We want to equalize the situation for all Pinoys.”

 

PH fails to combat human trafficking – UN

Ed Lingao Leave a comment

By Edz dela Cruz

_MG_0042

 

Despite the formation of specialized anti-trafficking units, special teams of prosecutors and investigators, and the passage of an anti-trafficking law a decade ago, human trafficking continues to be “carried out with impunity” in the country, says Joy Ngozi Ezeilo,United Nations (UN) Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons, especially in women and children

In fact, Ezeilo reports that despite all the resources and attention the government claims to have given to the problem, there have only been two convictions related to human trafficking in the country.

Ezeilo had visited the Philippines in November this year as part of her mission to investigate the problem of human trafficking and assess the efforts by governments to curb the problem.

After her visit here, Ezeilo observed that the Philippines has undoubtedly become a source country for human trafficking mainly due to poverty and a big demand for cheap and exploitative labor.The problem has grown to “alarming” proportions over the years, she observes.

Despite this, however, the Philippine government’s efforts to fight trafficking have been largely inadequate and the rate of prosecution of human traffickers low, Ezeilo says.

As UN Special Rapporteur, Ezeilo is tasked to respond effectively to reliable information on possible human rights violations, especially all forms and manifestations of trafficking. During her stay, Ezeilo gathered first-hand information on current legislative and institutional programs that tackle human trafficking in Manila, Cebu, and Zamboanga.

According to Ezeilo, despite the enactment of Republic Act No. 9208 or the Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act in 2003, government authorities still have low levels of awareness, knowledge, and skills in identifying cases of trafficking. This has resulted to uneven and layered implementation of the law at the regional and local levels. Ezeilo also noted the lack of standardized collection of statistical information that tracks the prevailing rate, forms, trends, and manifestation of human trafficking.

She however, acknowledged that the Anti-Trafficking Law has provided a forum for stakeholders to coordinate with government in monitoring human trafficking and created regional and provincial councils against trafficking.

The way Ezeilo sees it through, such efforts to prevent and combat trafficking will not be effective and sustainable so long as “the underlying social, economic, and political factors that create an environment conducive to trafficking” are addressed. Such factors include poverty, youth unemployment, gender inequality, discrimination, and gender-based violence.

At the end of her report, Ezeilo enumerates several interim recommendations that could help the government combat human trafficking.Among these are: providing training on human trafficking to state authorities and law enforcement officials; establishment of a specialized court to fast track trial of trafficking cases; in-depth research on human trafficking to develop tools and build systematic data collection; the launch of widespread campaigns to raise public awareness; and appointment of a rapporteur to coordinate all anti-trafficking initiatives.

Ezeilo, a Nigerian national, teaches at the University of Nigeria and specializes in Human Rights law. She assumed her functions as Special Rapporteur on trafficking in persons in August 2008.

A full report of Ngozi’s findings in this mission will be submitted to the United Nations Human Rights Council in June 2013.

 

We are back!

Ed Lingao Leave a comment

IT’S NOT AS IF we ever really left; it’s just that we are back on the net after an enforced hibernation of sorts.

The PCIJ institutional blog and the main portal had been down for more than a week after Google reported the sites as among many that have reflected malware issues recently. Those of you who have tried to access the sites since December 18 were automatically redirected to a Google warning that the sites seemed to distribute malware to visitors.

After extensive review by our platform architect Markku Seguerra, the PCIJ found that the warnings were only triggered by a confluence of factors: some old software on our server, as well as some spammy IP addresses on the same IP block as our service provider.

After a lot of hard work by our platform architect over the holidays, Google finally cleared out website and removed it from the malware “bad list.”

With this clearance, the PCIJ resumes its normal web activity, with a promise to deliver more in-depth investigative reports in the coming year.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Senate approves FOI on third, final reading

Ed Lingao Leave a comment

THE SENATE on Monday approved on third and final reading the chamber’s version of the Freedom of Information (FOI) bill, even as the version of the House of Representatives is still to be taken up on the floor.

Senate Bill 3208, or the People’s Ownership of Government Information (POGI) Act of 2012 was approved with a vote by 17 Senators, with no abstentions or votes against the measure, according to a statement released by the Senate public information office.

The POGI bill sets up a mechanism that enables private citizens to access government information. More than that, the bill shifts the burden to the government agencies that have custody of the information. With the measure, government agencies will now have to justify any need for secrecy or privacy. Previously, private citizens who want to access this information were the ones who had to justify their need and explain their motives for wanting the information.

Right to Know Right Now! lead convenor Nepomuceno Malaluan lauded the Senate’s speedy passage of the bill, saying this showed a clear commitment on the part of the Senate leadership in favor of transparency, accountability, and the public’s right to know. Malaluan said they wished that the House of Representatives could also exhibit this same commitment by acting speedily on the lower chamber’s version of the bill.

Malaluan said the passage of the Senate version “shows the chamber’s readiness to embrace a radical institutional reform in governance in a way that really empowers the Filipino people.”

Malaluan stressed that President Benigno S. Aquino III and Speaker Feliciano Belmonte can match the Senate’s commitment to FOI by certifying the bill as urgent, and pressing allies in the lower chamber to act immediately on the measure. The House version was approved late November in the committee level, and is still to be tackled in the plenary.

The problem, Malaluan said, is that there would only be nine session days left after Congress adjourns for the Christmas break on December 20. Congress resumes session on January 21, and again goes on break on February 8. Malaluan worries that without any clear signals from Malacanang or the House leadership, the FOI would again be consigned to the wayside while legislators prepare for the 2013 elections.

“In crunch time like this, we look to the political promises of the President which, as he has shown in the Reproductive Health bill and the Sin Tax bill, can be a necessary component in bills where there is division or strong resistnace,” he said. “Our battle cry is for him to certify this bill as urgent.”

The bill has slumbered in the lower chamber as legislators fumbled and fudged over its passage. Several legislators have been blocking the measure, insisting that the bill would only be abused by the media. In addition, several legislators have insisted on inserting a provision for a Right of Reply (ROR) in the measure. The ROR, as envisioned by legislators, would require media organizations to allot time, space, and prominence to officials who feel alluded to by what they perceive to be negative reports. Media organizations have opposed the ROR, saying that any attempt to legislate content would be a violation of the freedom of the press.

The Senate version provides for disclosure of information of public interest through posting on government websites. In addition, government agencies must grant requests for access to information within 15 days from receipt of a request. There are exceptions though – information pertaining to national security, or diplomatic and international negotiations, as well as tactical information that may have an impact on ongoing operations may not be divulged.

“It is the state’s responsibility to make information available to the public, to set up practical and viable mechanisms to ensure the availability of information and prevent its abuse,” said the bill’s principal author, Senator Gregorio Honasan. The bill was co-sponsored by Senators Loren Legarda, Alan Peter Cayetano, Antonio Trillanes IV and Franklin Drilon.