June 1, 2012
TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE OF
[initially you said Mr. Pangilinan need not be called by the committee, now you want to invite him]
SO: Our our last hearing was Dec. 13, the deadline i think at that time was Dec. 20. Akala ko kakasuhan nya under section 23.2, as you heard chairman Johnny Santos of SSS he is a member of the Philex board and they were outvoted, they decided not to sue Ongpin for short-swing profits. So I know would like to see Mr. Pangilinan explain why he did not pursue that lawsuit considering that this is really also, he must take into consideration the minority shareholders. Kawawa naman sila if we put it in the law pagkatapos hindi naman maitutupad yung kuwan, batas.
And also, if we see eh talagang this kind of law will not work where you're allowing somebody to almost sue himself or his partner, kalokohan yun. Bakit nandyan yan? Tanggalin natin yan. We will let the SEC be the one to have the right to sue and with the penalties going to the government.
TG: yes we us remember that the main purpose of the law is to protect the shareholders who did not have any information yet and these directors or officers that had information benefitted from it.
So this gives them the right to sue so that they can get the profits back. Again, as correctly stated by Sen. Osmena, if that is the case we should amend the law and let the SEC be the one to file the suit. Because as you can see even SSS did not file suit when they could have done so
[hindi ba yan na yung sagot sa tanong why MVP did not file a case bec lahat sila nakinabang]
SO: Hindi ko naman sinasabi na nakinabang si Manny Pangilinan personally, that he was involved in trading his own shares. It was Mr. Ongpin but Mr. Ongpin was a director.
Ngayon Mr. Ongpin and Mr. Pangilinan are partners in other ventures so ayaw niya kasuhan si Mr. Ongpin. They're partners in pertoleum, in natural gas find doon, sa mga iba pa. So normally you wouldn't want to sue your own partner because you want to keep a good relations with him. So sino po ang magfafile ng suit? It took a small shareholder like Mario Ongkiko through his daughter as atty-in-fact to file that suit. Hndi naman pupunta kay Ongkiko yung pera kung marecover yun, pupunta sa Philex. Sinabi ko naman prin-propose ko sa SSS you own 22% of Philex, now maybe the money will not directly go to you but that's still part of the profit of a company which you own 22%. So that's why that subsection in the law doesn't make sense to me.
[can you pls enumerate the 10 waivers, alin most unusual]
SO: Well hindi ka magsusubmit ng financial statement. No. 2 yung loan to value ratio, if it's a share of stock it's usually 50%. So if I have 100M of San Miguel stocks I know that there's no bank that would give me more than 50% as a loan kasi gusto nila may margin of safety. (3) Walang joint and solidary statement. In other words yung company yan ni Mr. Ongpin na humiram ng pera na yan wala dun yung pera ni Mr. Ongpin. He does not own a single share. It's in the name of his secretary. It's in the name of another corporation at normally in a situation like that ang sasabihin ng bangko ikaw ang may-ari nito talaga noh? Oo, pumirma ka rin sa IOU. ang problema yung sa (?) ni Mr. Ongpin. So paano mo hahabulin yun?
Mr. Ongpin has this practice of, he has about 35 corps at yung ginagamit niya na magborrow ng pera pero mahirap siya habulin because wala dun yung pangalan niya. Sasabihin niya sa presidente akin na ito huh. Teka muna, how are you protecting the shareholders of the bank and in this case the Filipino people when you're just giving out loans like to a company that almost doesnt exist. As a matter of fact yung DVRI was not registered when it applied for a loan. Nag-expire yung certificate of registration nila sa SEC in 2003 and they never bothered to renew it. Pagkatapos they applied for a loan in early 2009 wala silang statement in 2008 kasi they were not in existence. So you're lending money to a company not even registered.
[kanina you mentioned yung short-swing profit na P412M, but you mentioned..P2 billion in profit]
SO: Kasi yung P412M that's only covering the 50M shares that Mr. Ongpin bought from the DBP on Nov. 4 and sold on Dec. 4. So doon lang po, 50M shares at roughly P13 that's about P650 million and then he sold it at P21. Ang kita niya P412M. That we're very sure of because we have a record of the buy and record of the sell. But we found out digging through some SEC records that Mr. Ongpin was also buying and selling from other sellers within the 6 months statutory period.
So if you add that all up, we estimate his profits, his illegal short-swing profits to reach about P2 billion but we will wait. I will not go officially on that. We will wait until we obtain records.
[testimony of baliton proved favored ang loans, na talagang behest]
SO: I do not know what else or how else you can view the loan one day 510M, 80% loan to value ratio when it's normally max 50% binigyan pa ng discount sa interest rate, it's normally a spread of 5% over T-bills, this one was given a 2% of a t-bill. so ang laki ng kita ni ongpin P412M ang kita ng DBP ang liit, mga P2 billion sa interes na yun. Nagmamadali, ini-exempt you dont have to undergo credit investigation, in-exempt you dont have to accept your certificate of registration that you are really a corporation. Sus maria! Sabi ko if this is not a favored loan and if Mr. Ongpin did not procure undue advantage I dont know what is.
Ang depensa nila, looking back, ganun noh. Na pano mo alam na kikita ako, baka malugo pa nga ako dito. That's why we're proving, all the circumstances that the loans were given, especially favorable treatment which is against the anti-graft and corrupt practices act. We want to show that there was a price manipulation because nandun po sa transcript ng board minutes ng DBP; we want to show that there was collusion; pinagmamalaki nga ni Mr. David na sya at si Ongpin, pinaakyat pa yung presyo. So all at the expense of the ordinary investor in the stock market. Yung mga malalaki pwede mag buy and sell dyan at kino control ang presyo, particularly yung share of stock itself. So we want to stop that. That's also one of the main reasons na yung mga foreign investors ayaw talagang pumunta dito at sumakay ng long term sa stock market. We have one of the shallowest and one of the narrowest stock market in Asia. We have have limited number of shares registered and konti lang, bumili ka lang ng P10M puputok na yung presyo because very few shares eh. So most of the companies that are registered in the stock market, the big profitable ones, their free float is only about may 5%, may 10%.
I did basic homework lang siyempre malakas din yung resistance to give away your privacy and if you read the constitution the right to privacy is in the bill of rights now so i said eto we cannot go wrong let us adopt the best practices of the most progressive western democracies so pinaparesearch ko ngayon yung US, UK we cannot do better than that kasi maraming umaangal kaya nahihirapan si chair guingona in passing the amla because peopel dont like to give up their privacy so we have to find a minimum balance at ang minimum balance naman na iniintroduce ni sen guingona is what the fatf said the other countries have adopted sabi nila eto po ang standard na yun so you have to adopt this yan po ang explanation natin sa mga kaibigan natin sa senado, mga kasamhan natin na this is the minimum standard natin sa other countries we're not the only country that has to have this standard 5 or 6 that in their dark gray list of their fatf including indonesia, but the rest very small countries all countries of the world have adhered to teh fatf so that's why i am trying to adopt
eto yung problema if you ask one person yes ill give you mine and the other person doesnt ang mangyayari is he's hiding something he may not be hiding anything he might just be a very private person he doesnt want his kids subjected to kidnapping threats etc or blackmail
i dont think noynoy is hiding anything he can have it deposited in his sister's account why would he put it in his account but a person really has an innate aversion to letting the whole world what you're doing even the color of your underwear
(as pres he should submit, sign waiver)
that's going far because even in other countries nga the president does not do that dito lang nangyayari because of an offshoot of the impeachment trial pero talagang give a waiver of all your bank accounts ive never seen that in any country not in the us japan canada uk wala
you know naman political promises are made to be broken once in a while not naman all the time, but once in a while pagbigyan naman natin si noynoy
It's balancing between transpatrency and the desire of being private, of privacy even the amla the courts play a big role when the govt wants to go into your acct the govt does not go straight and the courts will be the ones to determine if meritorious nga dapat tingnan bank account
yung sinasabi ng kampo ni corona yung sinasabi nilang there was a violation because there was no court order the accounts were looked into number 1 there was no account looked into mali sila dun it was transaction value these were transaction reports that are reported periodically by the banks kasi sa amla every 500K you have to report it all the banks just report it to amlc and when the ombudsman requested the information that's when they took it out there was no violation of any laws there
(pnoy's refusal to sign waiver)
i guess that's really up to him that's his level of privacy that he wants to maintain
personally yes why not for me? i would not have any problem there
nobody today has signed a waiver so san magiging double standard
eh naipit na siya the thing is wag mo ipakita sa lahat leave it with the courts dont tell the whole world that i only have P5 in the bangko nakakahiya naman yun ganun and this is human nature if i look at your bank account sisipa ka rin but still in the amla we have already, nakasulat na dun that the courts have access so we just have to use to apply that to all govt officials we will use the amla standards that you have to court and show the court o meron akong probable cause
(ensuring accountability through transparency)
yes but you can also be subject to blackmail halimbawa kandidato ang isang tao dito titingnan lang, sisilipin yung bank records niya his enemy can just say o si TG nagdeposit ng 10M di niya alam o he did not bother to find out the grandmother of tg just happened to send it from the US TG lalagay ko muna dito sa kuwan mo so this can really be twisted to hurt you at yan ang objection ni tito sa amla
i guess the guy wants to be private you're looking into his love life you're looking into his car life you're looking into his gun life he has no more privacy
(dont public officials waive rights)
yes we do we already have very transparent lives everything we do marerecord ka, ma-ttv ka especially now
(no need for challenge of chiz)
ayoko lang magcomment im sure chiz has a reason for insisting on that essentially any intelligent person will not put it in his bank account intelligent ha
(cj not intelligent)
you know he was the head of the legal dept of sgv how can this guy put it in his name ang presumption is he did not trust anybody so he put it in his name or he was very kampante that the fcd law would forever ?
(kung walang tinatago bakit hindi buksan)
because of your innate right to privacy
SO: (on AMLA amendments...)
So i know we're going to have a bloody time in bicam and I will leave TG, I'm going to go somewhere for a vacation...
[so hindi you susuportahan yung bill ni escudero tungkol sa waiver..]
SO: I'm in favor of it but I know it's not gonna get approved.
[maraming ayaw] SO: yeah. The House won't even release their SALn di ba? The Senate has always released its SALn since I came here, anyway, 1995, alam ninyo kagad how many cars I have and nakakahiya rin eh.
[the moment u hold a public office, elected, privacy automatically nawawala na] SO: no but not 100%, I'm not gonna tell you who my girlsfriends are, you know, that's none of your business....in other words, you just wanna make sure that he's honest - the transparency of his private life, pabayaan mo na sya. But you want to make sure that he's not stealing, his not taking undue advantage of his position. And there are certain ways to do that and one of the first ways to do that is to clean up the judiciary because we have enough laws. Kaso pag nahuli ka lang aayusin mo lang fiscal, ayusin mo yung pulis na nag iimbestiga, yung judge, so useless din. We'll pass all of these laws and believe me, I will tell you 10 ways to get around the law of Chiz Escudero.
TG: Para sa akin we have to balance rin the right to privacy. Yung mga requirements sa AMLA law and procedure would make good enough. We're already filing our SALNs already and we make it very known to the public.
[ex parte provision, violation of privacy rights..] TG: the problem there is if you don't have an ex parte just to inquire, when you have an inquiry and you tell the person "huy titingnan ko yang bank account mo" eh di syempre iwi withdraw na nya lahat and that's what happened to the case of Gen. Garcia, he was able to withdraw millions of pesos when he was informed that AMLC was going to look into his bank accounts.
[similar to the case of Corona, yung magkuha ng Ombudsman ng info] SO: It was there. But it's not there anymore. Wala na yun, come on.
[na monitor nyo kung nasan na yung $2.4M] SO: Well if I were him and natural human being, it will be in Hong Kong. If I were him, a natural human reaction, I'll send it to Hong Kong already or Singapore. How will we dig that up now?
[may information kayo....baka kaya ni-waiver] SO: Alam mo when you pass laws, you have to take into consideration humn frailty, human reaction. There's no use passing a law like what we did now with the SRC, the guy who was doing the cheating who will sue his partner who's also cheating. So there's been no case ever filed.
Wala na yun. Alam nyo hindi lang ninyo alam huh, basahin nyo yung waiver nya, he will just say "I give my banks permission to give my account balances", balances as of Dec. 31st because that's the SALn law, Dec. 31st so kung iwiwithdraw ko ng Dec. 29 eh di wala na yan sa Dec. 31st. The banks will be telling the truth, on Dec. 31st Renato Corona has x amount.
[is that why you were no longer interested when he gave that waiver] SO: alam mo there was also a trade-off between the time that was being consumed by the trial and we wanted to finish it already and the amount of evidence we thought that was already on record and submitted necessary to find a conviction. And I think the majority of the senators said we have enough evidence.
[so sino pwede mag pursue investigation para malaman kung nandun pa yun] SO: I think it would be to the interest of the administration to pursue the investigation, what was this exercise for?
[using the waiver?] SO: you don't even have to use the waiver because in an investigation, there are more laws you can....you see the SALn limited it only to Dec. 31st at the end of the year di ba? But the anti-graft law, other laws that fall under the criminal code ang dami nyan.
[when you said, any intelligent person would not have the money in his bank...so you indicate that the $2.4M or P80.7M may have been....] SO: yes because if you are already had access to illegal funds, illegal na huh, ilagay mo dyan, nagkamali ka. Sasabihin ko sa inyo I'm going to look into your account. Sige you look into it, tatanggalin ko yun ipapadala ko muna sa Hong Kong. Eh guilty na nga ako eh. Okay, better I'm guilty, I have $2.4M rather than I'm guilty nawala pa yung $2.4M.
[that would be beyond AMLC, in tracing the $2.4M, in the event that he already withdrew the money] TG: that would fall into inquiry, yeah AMLC can do that but they have to pass through the courts, hindi automatic.
[naniniwala kayo na yung money ill-gotten] SO: No I will not go that far that it was ill-gotten. Previous SC decisions already, penned by Corona, if the money if there's no explanation it will be presumed to be ill-gotten. That is a Corona decision himself, in 2003 ata yun. So he himself said it. Alam mo sa explanation of vote ko, ginamit ko lahat ng arguments ng SC at ni Corona eh. I never invented the law. Did he violate the law? Sya umamin na he violated the law. Did he do it willingly, inamin nya rin he did naman all knowingly and willingly. Was it serious enough? Sila naman ang nagsabi na if this little woman can lose her job for a market stall and P1,000 eh P180 million ito. Maski yung standards, the betrayal of public trust, in-explain ko naman, eh kayo ang sumulat ng code of ethics eh ng judiciary. Ang sabi ninyo, the courts must be seem to be fair, must not only be fair but be seem to be fair. That's what I'm saying. You're asking, where's $2.4M, you don't blame people if they say ninakaw nya ito. You prove now how you earned it. And that's one thing we have to put in our laws also, prove how you earned it. Kasi dito po sa Pilipinas it's up to the government to prove that it was illegally earned. So a lot of these cronies they get away with it because the government and our laws require that you prove that it was illegitimately earned. That's why that decisions of Corona in 2003 na any sobra is presumed to be ill-gotten, that broke new ground. But in the US, it's the opposite. You have $2.4M, you prove where you earned it, it's not up to the IRS. It presumed that you did not declare it in your taxes, now you have to prove how you earned it. The burden of proof is in the citizen and the taxpayer, not on the IRS.
SO: (loopholes/ remedial legislation) regulation code, charter ng DBP, u just wait until i give u my proposed amendments, if i discuss them one by one it will take too long. Maraming palusot ang batas natin.
(ur mulling minimum public float for listed companies..) SO: I want a professional study on that first. I want to...you know we have to go by practical reason also. The congressmen and the senators will not swallow anything you say because woke up on the wrong side of the bed and like my myself, ano ba practice sa Thailand, sa Malaysia, Indonesia, what is the rule in the US? at bine blend ko yan, tinitingnan ko anong applicable dito. So you cannot say 30%,40% hindi pwede yan.
(it's safe to say that the committee is studying, to propose how minimum public float as a result of...) Yeah but later, I haven't gotten there yet. I have had to study, started yet, i'm doing too many things right now.
(yung sa OSG kanina, yung sinabi nila na P412M na nakita nila as short swing profit, ano yun limited lang sa Philex?) it's limited only to the buy and sell of shares of Philex stock that was owned by the DBP and sold to Ongpin, yun lang. Yung 50 million shares that was sold by DBP or Philex to Ongpin, the selling price to bid was P12.50 or P12.75 and then they sold it for P21. So the profit, yung mga P9, that's P412M. One month lang yun kaya nga short swing profit nga, kaya illegal nga yan sa loan eh.
(are you calling MVP) yes. We'll invite him. He's out of the country and I don't know. I'll as him when he's still be available (when he's back) yes.
(you want MVP to explain why he did not pursue the case) yeah but my reason is how far should we go amending this because this seems to me to be very useless kung....(what else should Pangilinan explain to the committee) that's the main thing I can't think of now. My mind is a little bit groggy already.
(gusto mo ba outsider ng SC yung kapalit ni Corona) basta hindi politician. I don't care if insider or outsider basta hindi lang politician because every decision is gonna be questioned now. May magdududa at ayoko na magkaron ng duda. I want the SC to be seen as a fair, not political, independent decision-making body. Hirap nyan. Look at what happened to Corona, any decision he makes pag in favor of Gloria wala na. Kasi bata ni Gloria yan. Hindi dapat bata ni Noynoy.
In fairness to Frank (Drilon) he himself said I'm not interested, it would not be a good appointment and that's true.
(AMLA amendments...) ...san galing confidence? Wala I just pray to God and say I have confidence we will pass it (kaya pa habulin) kung kaya habulin, kung kaya kaya. Kung hindi, hindi. Sorry. But the thing is, the way we passed it in the past, the first two laws, is after awhile you can convince your colleagues that it's to our interest to be part of the international financial community and to follow their restrictions, limitations on the financial systems around the world and we will go broke literally overnight if we do not use the international financial system because ang banking system natin hanggang dito lang. If you send money to Hong Kong dumadaan pa sa New York yan eh, nandun ang clearing house eh, lahat ng dollars. Yung mga pinapadala mo sa Singapore, Malaysia...you have to go thru the NY clearing house eh, the JP Morgan Chase or Citibank noh, that's all electronic. Supposed they do not want to cooperate with us, I could not send dollars to Hong Kong, I have to give it to you in cash.
(OFWS affected, in what way) the OFWs always send remittances so our economy will be affected because that's $20B, that's what keeping us afloat kaya wala nga tayong trade deficit, current account deficit. That's the only thing keeping us afloat. Secondly, it's keeping our economy open. Now it's a consumer-led economy. That's why Henry Sy is getting this, Gokongwei is getting this, they're putting up all the malls because the Filipinos now have some money to spend. Now, can you imagine kung pahihirapan remittances nila? Now eto bangko ka, sasabihin ng central bank say your in France, its CB will say that any remittance to Manila I want them to sign an exra waiver, ganito ganito ganito. Now when you're doing thousands of remittances, u need an extra clerk, more pieces of paper...sasabihin ng bangko, tama na I don't want to do busines in the Philippines...maybe they'll be able to make two US cents per transaction, eh di lugi na ko. That will affect us very badly.
(considering may bicam pa, kelan dapat mapasa yan) oo nga eh. Baka hindi mahabol ng bicam. I don't know. We will see. It's really gonna be testy. That's why I'm not even sure whether we can hold hearings on Thurs or Friday because Monday or Tuesday and then Tuesday night we'll go into bicam, can we finish the whole night until 5am and then have it ratified on Wed, I don't know. Baka hindi, we'll not hold a special session, maybe we can talk to the FATF, we pass this in the House, we pass this in the Senate and have one bicam, can you wait until July? At least nakita na na passed already. Magmamakaawa lang.
(you will write to FATF, pwede nilang gawin yun) no, we will let the BSP be the one to write the FATF, not us
(hindi nyo aabutin talaga) pano natin aabutin, the 1st and 2nd bicam we had it took us 3 months. Nagbabakbakan kami nun sa Sofitel...kaya marami nakalusot
(yung $2.4M wala na yun, di na mare recover) yeah wala na yan, wala na yan. Believe me. You ask Corona where's the $2.4M. Believe me
(kung dinala sa abroad yun hindi na mahahabol yun kahit na thru AMLC) indi na. Unless he comes back out of the goodness of his heart to gives it to us, no he won't. Human nature na yan eh.
Wednesday, June 19
Tuesday, June 18
Monday, June 17
Sunday, June 16