What is the truth?

In this column I am reposting articles from FB for readers with no access to social media. The first is by Jose Alejandrino on Poe’s family, the second by Ruben Carranza, the third by banker Leo Alejandrino about RCBC.

”According to an American friend who gave me details of the Poe family as he knew them….

“About 1912, he recounted, a half-Portuguese, half-African sailor jumped ship while calling at the port of Manila. This sailor was from Fernando Poe, a colony in West Africa. He met a Spanish-Chinese mestiza and they had a son, Fernando Poe Sr., who married an American girl called Elizabeth Kelly.?

“The couple had, if my friend remembers correctly six children, mostly girls. One of them was Ronaldo Poe who later became known as FPJ.

“Ronnie Poe or FPJ had three kids by a first marriage: Ronian, Ryan, and Lovey. He later married Susan Roces, the sister of Rosemarie Sonora, but they had no children.?

“Rosemarie was allegedly the mistress of Ferdinand Marcos. It was the appointments secretary of Marcos, Mariano Ruiz, who acted as the go-between. US intelligence was aware of this affair. When Rosemarie became pregnant, Marcos got worried because it could affect his re-election bid in 1969 against Sergio Osmena Jr. particularly if his wife Imelda found out. So Rosemarie was sent to Guam in 1968 where she gave birth to a baby girl. She returned to the Philippines after giving birth but when she thought of going to the US she could not bring her daughter with her.? So it was arranged that the baby girl be found in Jaro Cathedral by a peasant family then given to Susan Roces and FPJ for adoption. This baby girl was named Grace Poe.?

“Later Susan discovered the adoption papers were not complete. This scared Susan because of possible inheritance complications later on with FPJ’s children by an earlier marriage. Aside from properties FPJ had accumulated, there was his library of films that was worth a fortune. So she advised Grace to return to the Philippines so that the properties could be transferred to her name. This was the reason why, according to my friend, Grace Poe came back.”

Alejandrino thinks the American story should be checked out.

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Ruben Carranza tells this story that was posted by Sylvia Morningstar in FB:

“What’s the connection between your slow internet in the Philippines, Marcos and candidate Grace Poe? The fastest frequency is monopolized by Liberty Telecoms.

“Who owns Liberty? Ramon Ang/Danding Cojuangco.

“So why doesn’t Liberty compete with Globe and Smart? Because it hasn’t access to enough capital and technology. It wanted Australia’s Telstra. Why an Australian company? Because that’s where Danding Cojuangco parked the bulk of his assets. But Telstra knew what many Filipinos don’t think about: that Ramon Ang’s ‘capital’ isn’t money but political power.

“Telstra won’t risk billions it can’t recover if that political power isn’t guaranteed which explains why Telstra wanted Ramon Ang to guarantee it would recover its money if they failed to get all the regulatory and infrastructure requirements.

“So what’s Ramon Ang’s alternative? How can Danding Cojuangco ensure that Liberty keeps its monopolized internet frequency and tempt foreign money to partner with him and ‘assure’ Telstra he has the kind of political power to ‘guarantee’ their monopoly and profits? Through a constitutional amendment….

“… the candidate who said she won’t give Cojuangco any advantage is already promising to do it even before she is elected. Her spouse works for Liberty Telecoms: Neil Llamanzares.”

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Extracts from Leo Alejandrino’s blog ‘Take the Hit’:

“It is riveting stuff. The Senate hearings on the poor Bangladeshis’ $81 million heist have… all the elements of a thriller, soap opera and business reality show rolled into one: There is a bank branch manager possibly requiring psychiatric consideration, an all-male cast of Senators vying for attention, a female bank lawyer with nice flip-up hair, a bank president still in shock, an AMLAC regulator with a doubtful sense of humor, a staid Deputy Central Bank Governor upset the country is now ranked with Sri Lanka as the money laundering Boracay of the world; and a bubbly lady who charges P500 to handle P4 billion in money transfers (which figure she subsequently corrected). In a dramatic moment, the latter publicly returned P10 million to the Bank of Bangladesh representing her “handling fee” while not saying this accounted for only one-third of her estimated foreign exchange profit from the deal.

“Central to the story is one Maia Deguito, a lowly manager of an undistinguished RCBC branch in Jupiter St. in Makati. She is so far down the organizational pecking order the bank’s president could not pick her out in a line-up. Yet on her own, Maia was able to move four billion pesos around the bloc with not a peep from either her colleagues or the elaborate compliance systems one imagines blanket RCBC, the nation’s fifth largest bank. Specifically, this is what she could do and, allegedly, did:

1. She could open four dollar accounts with fictitious holders to accept $81 million.

2. She could establish a dollar account under the name of an unsuspecting, street-wise businessman in which $66 million would be inwardly and outwardly remitted.

3. She could open and operate a peso account under this same businessman’s name for two years without his knowledge. She could at will withdraw P20 million in cash from said account.

4. She could offer this businessman P20 million for keeping mum.

5. She could over-ride a “freeze order request” from her superiors and remit out $81 million from her branch under the very wide eyes of her branch colleagues.

6. With more ease than ordering a pizza with complex toppings, she could over the phone direct a remitting company to deliver P600 million and $18 million in cash to a near stranger; to convert $60 million into pesos and remit P2.4 billion to two casino operators; while openly admitting the money is not hers.

7. She could, as boasted to her colleagues, engage any number of lawyers to evade Anti-Money Laundering regulations.

8. She could take care of the P5 million retirement of a concerned branch colleague.

9. She could say her superiors approved all this.

10. She could say the bank president coached her on how to handle the subsequent investigation.

11. She could keep her job days after the red flags were up.

“And all of this on a modest education, a salary of less than P100,000 a month and no superior physical assets. This woman deserves some respect.”