Tampering with the Evidence

Penman for Monday, August 31, 2009


ALONG WITH many other friends in the arts community, I was elated to receive the news last week that the Supreme Court had issued an order restraining the Palace from conferring the National Artist Awards until it had decided on our petition citing an abuse of presidential prerogative in the matter. Since that case is now in court, I’m not going to comment on it any further (didn’t I say that last week as well?), happy to leave things to the wisdom of our Justices for the time being; in truth I’m just as weary of the dagdag National Artist controversy as you are, and I wish I could move on like I promised to more congenial chit-chat about social networking, gangster movies, and Vietnamese rice noodles.

But hold on: someone at the National Commission for Culture and the Arts (NCCA) seems to be trying to pull a fast one—again. To put it mildly, I don’t think it’s very sporting of that someone to do this—effectively tampering with the evidence—while the case is being looked into by the Court.

A friend told me that when he looked up the National Artists page on the NCCA website, the rules had suddenly changed—now there was a mention of Executive Order 236 empowering an Honors Committee to make up its own list of NA nominees to the President. That wasn't there before the recent DNA scandal blew up—neither the rule nor the role of the committee in the NAA process.

Now that the case is before the High Tribunal to be sorted out, how fair is it to try and pull the rug from under the feet of those of us who've been arguing that the Honors Committee never figured in the selection process before, by sneaking it into the rules posted on the website?

What are they going to call this—a regular update, for something that hasn't been touched in years? Or do they actually expect the honorable Justices and other observers to believe that the revised rules had been there all along?

Unfortunately for whoever ordered the NCCA webmaster to monkey around with the rules page, I saved it—Web-archived it, to be more precise, preserving the full contents and appearance of the page—as soon as the scandal broke a month ago. Pardon my suspicious mind, but I had a funny feeling this would happen. So I’ve uploaded this file onto my Website for anyone who wants to see what the NCCA rules originally and always were. You can access that file here. (As soon as you’ve downloaded it, manually remove the .html tag from the filename then click on it to see the page in its original state.)

To whoever may be calling the shots these days at the NCCA, a friendly appeal: stop this silliness, play fair, and do the right thing—restore that page to what it was four weeks ago. And please remember that things work differently on the Internet, where everything you do or say leaves a digital trace behind, no matter how hard you try to cover up your tracks. Not only does it not pay to lie; worse, it just doesn’t work.


LET ME take this opportunity to mark and to lament the recent loss of two members of our writing community, both apparently from prolonged and catastrophic illnesses. The first was former journalist Leticia Salanga, whom I will choose to remember as the bright, laughing woman of her best days; the second was the very young Mae Astrid Tobias, my former student, also very sharp and talented, a writer of stories for children. We will miss them both, and my deepest sympathies to their families.



IT SEEMED just like yesterday when we were snotty kids in shorts kicking a football around in the dusty grass of the PGEA compound along Quezon City's Elliptical Road—behind a creaky building that a sign hopefully identified as the Philippine Science High School. But a message reminded me the other day that it's been 45 years since that place opened.

Aside from producing hundreds if not thousands of scientists as it was mandated to do—many of whom now lead the Philippine S&T effort, doing pioneering research in engineering, agriculture, and medicine, among others—the strongly multidisciplinary school has also graduated the likes of Mapua president Rey Vea, Palace stalwart Jun Esperon, model Anna Bayle, composer Joel Navarro, Congressman Jun Abaya, writer Jessica Zafra, and filmmaker Aureus Solito (who immortalized teenage angst, PSHS-style, in his movie “Pisay”).

This Saturday the 5th, the PSHS—which has since moved to more modern but also aging digs on Agham Road not too far away—will celebrate its 45th Foundation Day with the usual homecoming. Not so usual will be a couple of innovative projects advanced by the jubilarians, the Class of ’84.

Batch busybody Yeyet Ongchangco-Diaz wrote me to say that “My batch is putting up the Pisay alumni hub, a web-based portal that works much like Facebook but is less complex for now, but which will be upgraded in the months following. PSHS has never really had a useful and updated alumni database, and every time there is a need to round up information about PSHS alumni, we go into a mad scramble to put together bits and pieces of data from all sources available. We are hoping to put an end to that with this hub.

“Also, part of the evening's highlights is an auction of school needs. Here’s how this goes: there will be photos of rundown (almost all, actually) rooms, ceilings, labs, roofing, equipment; the auctioneer will ‘sell’ the item on the floor to any bidder. Say a room needs repainting; if the estimated cost is P20,000, it will be cut up into chunks of P5,000 each (so it's easier to sell) until the P20,000 is completed. The PSHS Alumni Association will take care to follow through on these pledges. All unsold 'items' will be featured on the website for online 'purchases'.”

Terrific idea, Yeyet—and let’s all go there and pitch in, my fellow nerds, especially those of you who haven’t done too badly since your agawan-base days. You have nothing to lose but your loose change and your guilt.

Basia Live in Manila!

We would like to inform you that we’re bringing in Basia on October 21, 2009 for a show at the Araneta Coliseum!

Basia is emerging with her strongest work yet, It’s That Girl Again, an album that brings her trademark global pop/jazz sound into today. From the first track “If Not Now Then When” —the bouncing melody, soaring horns, and the feeling that you’ve landed in a small fiesta—it’s as though she has never been away. Basia and her collaborator Danny White have always drawn from timeless influences: the rhythms and styles of Latin music, the sound of classic American soul and R&B, and the polish of ’50s and ’60s jazz; yet the sound is undeniably fresh. There is nothing about this album that is stuck in the past, rather it presses forward, building upon their many accomplishments during the course of their career.

I hope you and your friends can watch. I would appreciate it much if you can forward this to your friends.

Mikey Arroyo’s reply and VERA Files rejoinder

mikey arroyo 2
ABS-CBN late night news Sunday quoted Mikey as saying he declared the San Francisco Bay Area property in his SALN but was waiting for his lawyer to return from Canada before he would issue an official statement.

From Inquirer:

I declare everything I own—Mikey Arroyo

By Lira Dalangin-Fernandez
INQUIRER.net

Pampanga Representative Juan Miguel “Mikey” Arroyo on Monday refuted reports of irregularities in his statement of assets liabilities and net worth (SALN), calling them “malicious” and waste of his time.

“I have always been transparent with my SALN ever since I entered public office. I have declared everything I own there. It is self-explanatory,” said Arroyo, eldest son of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, in a statement.

VERA Files rejoinder

The house at 1655 Beach Park Blvd. in Foster City, California remains registered in the name of Angela Arroyo Montenegro, wife of presidential son and Pampanga Rep. Juan Miguel “Mikey” Arroyo, data from the San Mateo County assessor’s office show.

As of Monday, August 31, the latest entry in the assessor’s office was dated April 2008 and shows Angela as the “grantee” of the property, which Mikey on Monday said he had already transferred to a company called Beach Way Park LLC as a way of explaining why the property did not appear in his 2007 and 2008 Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Network (SALN). LLC is short for Limited Liability Company.

“(The house) is registered under Beach Way Park LLC in which I am a shareholder and which I declared in my SALN,” Mikey said in reaction to the VERA Files report.

The VERA Files report had cited an entry in Mikey’s SALN for 2008 in which he declared himself a “sharedholder” in Beach Way Park, a company sharing the same address, “Beach Park Blvd, California,” as his Foster City property.

The San Mateo County Assessor’s Office, however, yielded no record of Beach Way Park or its ownership of the Foster City property, which the couple bought in 2006.

Instead, the most recent transaction on record at the assessor’s office was between IndyMac Bank and Angela coursed through the Mortgage Electronic Registration System in which the title was reconveyed or returned to her, not to Beach Way Park. The transaction was recorded on April 15, 2008.

An online search with the U.S. and California Securities and Exchange Commissions and the State of California’s official Website, including its database of LLCs or limited liability companies, also yielded no record of “Beach Way Park LLC.” Information on the State of California’s Website is updated weekly and “is current as of Aug. 28, 2009.”

Although Mikey listed Beach Way Park’s address as Beach Park Blvd. in California, lawyers consulted by VERA Files said the Arroyos could have registered the company in another state.

LLCs or limited liabilities companies in the U.S. are small businesses similar to single proprietorships in the Philippines and can be set up even with just one person as shareholder.

“The limited liability company (LLC ) is now the most common legal entity chosen by small business owners,” said the LLC Expert, a website specializing in the setting up of LLCs. “When you create an LLC, you take the first step in smart business protection planning. A properly formed limited liability company creates a legally enforceable layer of protection between you personally and your business.”

Mikey denied having been contacted by VERA Files. But VERA Files stands by its assertion that it repeatedly tried to contact him by text and calls on his two mobile phones.

Although Mikey, President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo’s eldest child, issued a statement refuting his nondeclaration of the Foster City property, he did not address the other points in the story, which needed explaining.

Among the questions VERA Files sent to Mikey were: Why did he transfer his Redwood City condominium to Angela before selling it in 2005? Similarly, why did he transfer the Foster City property to Angela?

Mikey and Angela sold their Redwood City condominium for $900,000 in September 2005. At the time, his mother, President Gloria Arroyo, was facing impeachment charges for the “Hello, Garci” controversy, the revelation through wiretapped conversations that President Arroyo called up Election Commission Virgilio Garciliano while votes for the 2004 presidential elections were being counted.

INQUIRER.net and other media organizations carried the report of Vera Files exposing that Arroyo failed to declare in his 2007 and 2008 SALN a $1.32-million or P63.7-million beachfront property in the San Francisco Bay Area in California which he bought and then transferred to his wife Angela in 2005.

The house is located at 1655 Beach Park Blvd in Foster City in San Mateo County.

Vera Files said that while the congressman-son of the President declared a residential house in the United States in his SALN for 2005 and 2006, he did not mention it in his SALN for the two succeeding years.

Vera Files also reported that the young Arroyo is indeed a shareholder in Beach Way Park LLC which is located on Beach Park Blvd California, the same street where the Foster City property is located.

“With regards to the San Francisco Bay house, it is registered under beach Way Park LLC in which I am a shareholder and which I declared in my SALN. And this fact was even attested to by the writer or the writers of the story,” he added.

The congressman said the report was misleading either due to the writers’ malicious intent or lack of knowledge on the matter.

“Unfortunately, either the writer or writers deliberately imposed a malicious twist on the story or they lack knowledge on the legal aspects regarding corporations,” he said.

Arroyo said those who have questions on his SALN can talk to his lawyer or those who do not believe him can sue him.

“As much as possible, I don’t want to waste my time dealing with issues like this,” said Arroyo. “There are far more important things to do especially in helping the government find ways to lessen the effects if not bail us out of the impact of the global financial crisis.”

Arroyo also denied that he snubbed the writers’ request for an interview to get his reaction, stressing that the news agency did not attempt to reach him.


From GMA-7 online:


Mikey denies irregularities in his SALN

Presidential son and Pampanga Rep. Juan Miguel “Mikey” Macapagal Arroyo on Monday vehemently denied an investigative report alleging that he failed to declare in his Statement of Assets, Liabilities, and Networth (SALN) a $1.32 million or P63.7 million property in California.

In a text message, Arroyo said he had “always been transparent” about his SALNs ever since he entered public office, contrary to the Vera Files report that said he did not declare in his 2007 and 2008 SALNs a beachfront property in the San Francisco Bay Area in California which he bought and then transferred to his wife Angela in 2006.

“I have always been transparent with my SALN ever since I entered public office. I have declared everything I own there. It is self-explanatory,” Arroyo said.

“In regard to the San Francisco Bay house, it is registered under beach Way Park LLC in which I am a shareholder and which I declared in my SALN. And this was even attested to by the writer or the writers of the story,” he said.

Arroyo said, “Unfortunately, either the writer or writers deliberately imposed a malicious twist on the story or they lack knowledge on the legal aspects regarding corporations.”

According to the Vera Files report, the house in question is located at 1655 Beach Park Blvd in Foster City in San Mateo County. It said that even if Arroyo relinquished to his wife any right to the property, guidelines for the filing of SALNs in the Philippines require public officials to declare property owned by their spouses.

The Vera Files report said the authors repeatedly attempted to get his side by phone, which Arroyo denied.

“There is no truth to the claims of Vera Files I would not reply to their query because in the first place, they have not contacted me. Vera Files did not try to reach me as they claim to. If they had, I would have taken time to talk to them,” said the presidential son.

Arroyo said anyone who wants to question his SALN can talk to his lawyer who prepared the document. “If they still have doubts, they can sue me,” he added.

Saying there are “far more important things” that he needs to attend to, the Pampanga congressman said he would not discuss the issue further.

“As much as possible, I don’t want to waste my time dealing with issues like this. There are far more important things to do especially in helping the government find ways to lessen the effects if not bail us out of the impact of the global financial crisis,” Arroyo said, adding that as chairman of the House energy committee, he is helping find ways to slash power rates and fuel prices. - Johanna Camille Sisante, GMANews.TV

Click below for the property profile of Miikey Arroyo’s Foster City property:

Mikey Foster city property profile pafe 1

Also click here:

mikey Foster City property profile

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