Ongpin's Inconsistency Galore
Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas Deputy Governor Nestor A. Espenilla ("Espenilla") must have filed with the Office of the Ombudsman by now his counter-affidavit to the Complaint-Affidavit of Roberto. Ongpin ("Ongpin"). Ongpin accused him of violation Section 3(e) of the Republic Act No. 3019, otherwise known as the Anti-Graft And Corrupt Practices Act.
Ongpin charges, in his Complaint-Affidavit, that Espenilla, as Acting Chairman of the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) and Officer in Charge of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) on 14 November, 2012, caused him and his companies undue injury.
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In defense of the guardians of the well
The Anti-Money Laundering Council, very early this year, was very much surprised to see itself subjected to, in my view, unwarranted criticism. A well-known opinion writer (not of this paper) painted the AMLC as having turned by PNoy into "his deadly weapon against his enemies."
The basis of such condemnation apparently was a petition filed by the AMLC with the Court of Appeals to freeze the bank accounts of some officers of the Development Bank of the Philippines who were implicated in the so-called "behest" loan to one who was a former minister during the tenure of the late President Ferdinand Marcos."
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NAMFREL rides again
Never mind that it came after months of tense and uncertain waiting. Never mind that it came out in print media on the page of the section allocated by the Philippine Daily Inquirer in its 30 December 2012 issue to jobseekers, death notices, and classified ads. What matters is that NAMFREL is alive and well and was given the job it had most earnestly sought for the coming May 13 elections.
On December 21, 2012, the Commission on Elections (COMELEC), in a per curiam resolution, appointed NAMFREL as its one of its citizens' arms. Click for Complete Article

Returning to the basics of Long term deposit or investment certificate
The otherwise placid waters of the investment community of the country were recently stirred, not so mildly, by the issuance of the Department of Finance of Revenue Regulation No. 14-2012. What caused a lot of consternation amongst the always sober and somber investment community is Section 3 which deals with Section 22(FF) of the National Internal Revenue Code relating to a bank product known as the "Long-term Deposit or Investment Certificate."If my recollection serves me right (and I intend to confirm this as soon as I am able to do research at the Senate archives), the banks were at that time under severe criticism for their lending practice: they were predominantly lending short-term. This forced companies to borrow short-term in order to fund their projects which had long-term gestation periods. Click for Complete Article