Allegations baseless, malicious, says Megaworld

 

PENTHOUSE VISTA A view from the corridor leading to the 303-square-meter Unit 38B of The Bellagio Tower I at Bonifacio Global City owned by Chief Justice Renato C. Corona. Photo taken on Jan. 5, 2012. ERNIE SARMIENTO

Property developer Megaworld Corp. decried as “completely baseless” and “malicious” allegations that it had sold discounted upscale condominium units to Chief Justice Renato Corona in exchange for special court favors.

“For the record, we wish to state that in all our business dealings with Chief Justice Corona, the company has neither solicited nor obtained any favor either from the Chief Justice or from the court,” Megaworld said in a statement Tuesday.

To give due respect to the impeachment proceedings, Megaworld said it had earlier chosen to remain silent primarily due to its privacy policy of maintaining strict confidentiality with respect to all client information.

But after the exhaustive testimony given by its finance director, Giovanni Ng, and after delivering all the documents that were requested by the impeachment court, Megaworld lamented allegations that the sale of the units mentioned during the impeachment hearings were in consideration for favors received or requested from the court.

3 cases

The company urged the public to examine the records of the high court’s decisions on all cases involving Megaworld. It said these publicly available records “would readily show that Megaworld has never requested nor obtained any favor from anyone in the court, including the Chief Justice who is presently standing trial.”

Citing its own records, Megaworld said there had been three cases decided with finality by the high court involving the property developer, two of which were issued before the purchase of the Bellagio unit.

The third case was issued after the purchase of the Bellagio unit but which however was adverse to Megaworld, with Corona himself voting against the property developer.

In summary, Megaworld lost to its court opponent in two out of these three cases.

“The cases speak for themselves … In all these cases, we have followed all judicial processes, availed of all legal remedies and abided by all the final decisions of the court,” Megaworld said.

Megaworld vs Tanseco

“It is significant to note that even before spouses Corona finished their amortization of the Bellagio unit, Justice Corona voted against Megaworld Globus in Megaworld Globus Asia Inc. vs. Tanseco, GR No. 181206 (2009),” the statement said.

This decision canceled a 1995 contract to buy and sell between the parties and Megaworld Globus thus paid the respondent, Mila S. Tanseco, a total of P21.72 million to satisfy the judgment.

“As a company, we shall continue to uphold the highest standard of ethical business practices,” Megaworld said.

“With the impeachment trial in progress at the Senate, we shall refrain from giving any further comment on this matter in due deference to the constitutional process taking place at the Senate.”

 

Senators want to cut impeach trial to 3 hours

 

2 HEADS BETTER THAN ONE Senator-judges Frank Drilon and Jinggoy Estrada in a huddle on Day 9 of the impeachment trial.

The relatively long hours of the impeachment trial of Chief Justice Renato Corona could be taking their toll on some of the Senate’s most senior members.

Senator Joker Arroyo on Tuesday proposed on the floor that the court trim the duration of the trial from four hours to three hours. Most of the senators, including Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile, were agreeable to the proposal.

In the end, however, the chamber reached a consensus to leave the discretion of adjourning the hearings at around 5 p.m., instead of 6 p.m., to Senate Majority Leader Vicente Sotto III.

“The schedule is heavy. The attention span does not last more than three hours. The other thing is most of us are senior citizens. We can’t stay that long. After the hearing, we have to review, and appraise the evidence submitted,” Sotto said by phone.

The senators way past 60 years old are Arroyo, Enrile, Sotto, Miriam Defensor-Santiago, Franklin Drilon, Gregorio Honasan II, Panfilo Lacson, Sergio Osmeña, Edgardo Angara and Manuel Villar Jr.

Tiresome

In the past eight hearing days, the trial ran from 2 p.m. to 6 p.m., which proved too tiresome for some senators who also had to attend sessions in the morning to tackle bills twice a week.

The senators also approved Santiago’s proposal that they reset their sessions for Tuesday and Wednesday mornings to free up Monday mornings for their caucus, effective next week.

For the past three weeks of trial, the senators held sessions on Monday and Tuesday mornings.

Some senators have found their schedule every Monday too heavy, since they had to hold sessions and then meet for a caucus before proceeding to the trial, Sotto said.

With the new setup, the senators will hold sessions at 9 a.m. to 12 noon every Tuesday and Wednesday, except when they convene the Commission on Appointments on Wednesdays, when the session will be held at 11 a.m. to  12 noon.

The schedule of the trial remains the same—from Monday to Thursday.

During Tuesday’s plenary session, Arroyo, 84, manifested that the trial be stopped at 5 p.m. because of concerns that the trial had eaten up into the senators’ deliberations on pieces of legislation, including the reproductive health bill.

Alarmed

“I’m alarmed at what is happening in the House. They’re saying they will file another impeachment case. We have 16 hours of impeachment [a week] and four hours for legislation,” Arroyo said.

Senator Pia Cayetano said the trial could be fast-tracked “if we can prevent the prosecution from grandstanding.”

Sought for comment later, Enrile, who is turning 88 on February 14, and has presided over the trial four hours a day and four days a week, said he was “amenable” to adjourn the trial by 5 p.m., but didn’t mind going beyond it.

“I am amenable to trying it even beyond, if that is the pleasure of the Senate,” he told reporters.

Sotto’s discretion

The senators, however, did not put Arroyo’s manifestation to a vote, and merely agreed to give Sotto the discretion of adjourning the hearing by 5 p.m., with Enrile’s concurrence.

“I just asked for blanket authority… to play it by ear. By 5 o’clock, I will sense if we need to adjourn or not, in accordance with the Senate President. If the testimony is serious, then let’s extend. Otherwise, I will move to adjourn. There is no hard and fast rule on the 5 p.m. adjournment,” Sotto said.

Indeed, striking a balance between their legislative work and the trial was tough.

“Well, necessarily we have to accept that because we double the efforts of the Senate,” Enrile said when asked about his colleague’s concerns that the legislative work had been tied up by the trial.

“Of course in the House, they’re freer but here in the Senate we are saddled with two distinct functions, trying an impeachment case and at the same time, attending to our legislative work, and also our confirmation authority.”

Grace Ibuna, under-fire for pulling the plug on Iggy Arroyo Grace Ibuna, under-fire for pulling the plug on Iggy Arroyo

 

The death of Ignacio 'Iggy' Arroyo sparked a word war between the camps of Arroyo's legal wife Alicia Arroyo and concubine Grace Ibuna, who terminated the late lawmaker's life support. Alicia will file criminal charges against Ibuna for pulling the plug without her consent.
Although Iggy and Alicia have lived separate lives for many years now, the annulment case has not been finalized, making Alicia the legal wife. Arroyo suffered a heart attack while in London with mistress Grace Ibuna before going into life-support.

Aquino confirms dating Korean TV host

                                 President Benigno Aquino and TV and radio personality Grace Lee.

“We’re seeing each other,” Aquino answered when asked at the tailend of a news briefing the real score between him and the radio talk show host and TV anchor.
The reporters cheered the President, “Yihee.”
Pressed on how long they’ve been seeing each other, the President  invoked his right to privacy.
Aquino, 51, has been linked to various women, many of them younger than him.
Jailed former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has accused Aquino of encouraging gossip about his love life.
“Neither the President nor anyone else can truly expect to govern the next five years with nothing but a sorry mix of vilification, periodically recycled promises of action followed by lethargy, backed up by few, if any, results, and presumptuously encouraging gossip about one’s love life in which no one can possibly be interested,” Arroyo said in a paper “It’s the Economy, Student.”

Llamas sorry, says he forgets ‘I’m no longer a regular guy’

 

THE BARGAIN HUNTER President Aquino confers with his controversial political adviser, Ronald Llamas, in Malacañang. EDWIN BACASMAS

Even with a Cabinet rank and the privilege of being in the President’s inner circle, Ronald Llamas claims he still forgets that he’s “no longer a regular guy.”
The presidential adviser on political affairs admitted this much in an interview on Monday, after issuing a formal apology to Malacañang over a Philippine Daily Inquirer eyewitness report that spotted him buying pirated DVDs in a Quezon City mall last week.
The episode once again put Llamas on the spot, three months after he was forced to explain why he was keeping several firearms, including a semiautomatic assault rifle which was inadvertently exposed in public after two of his bodyguards figured in a road accident while Llamas was abroad.
But Llamas need not feel alone and without friends on this one. Among those who think he should be given some slack is a former President—and ironically a pillar of the local film industry—as well as a former university president who vouched for Llamas’ “simplicity” and fancy for “everything cheap.”

Santiago seething over attacks: I will stay until end

 

Is Senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago being provoked into submission by her critics?

The mercurial senator raised the issue Tuesday amid criticisms of how she had been scolding members of the prosecution for their purported blunders during the proceedings.

“Since the Senate rules prohibit public discussion on the merits of the case, the corrupt character assassins feed the media with poisonous personal attacks,” Santiago wrote in a letter addressed to reporters covering the Senate.
“My enemies could deliberately provoke me with a personal attack that could lead me to further hypertension and a possible stroke, thus effectively removing me from the impeachment court.”
But Santiago intends to stay on despite being elected to the International Criminal Court (ICC), whose members will take their oath next month.
“It is black propaganda to imply that my strong efforts to prevent trial delays will not amount to anything, because I will no longer be in the country when the impeachment trial is submitted for decision,” she said.
“Even only one vote could be crucial to decide the impeachment case. Hence, I shall take steps to persuade the ICC to call me, only until after the impeachment decision has been promulgated.”
In the meantime, Santiago said she would no longer respond to attacks against her in media.
‘Submental cretins’
But rising blood pressure aside, she came out swinging on Tuesday and attacked her critics’ credentials in questioning her behavior as a judge in the impeachment court.
“I am aghast and postal that a party in litigation and the submental cretins who are my enemies have the gall to demand the power to control the personality of the judge. To educate the noneducable, it is the judge who controls the proceedings,” Santiago said in a letter addressed to reporters covering the Senate.
She also made an issue of the “trial experience” and “law experience” of lawyers who cried foul over her actions.
“What is the record of actual courtroom experience of my enemies?” Santiago asked. “Not every dimwit can claim ‘trial practice,’ which calls for the special rules on trial technique and procedure. And what is the basis for all the pious nonsense about judicial behavior, from people who have never seen a courtroom, or read jurisprudence?”
Santiago left the hearing early last Thursday after her blood pressure shot up to 180/90. Her condition improved the following day, but “pressure points over the weekend caused a stratospheric rise to 180/100.”
The senator cited the legal provision that “any personal attack against a judge during trial qualifies as the crime of contempt, because it tends to degrade the administration of justice.”
She said the Supreme Court had ruled that “this provision applies even to media.”

ABS-CBN official statement on new noontime show 'It’s Showtime!' 1/30/2012 1:37 PM

After much speculation that the “unkabogable” show is being axed,It’s Showtime! is returning to the airwaves this February 6 as ABS-CBN’s newest noontime show. As of this report, the hosts are on board the “Unkabogable Party Party Bus,” touring the metro and asking fans on the road to join them in celebrating the good news.

 Below is ABS-CBN’s official statement on the show.

 After two years of being a morning kapamilya favorite, "It's Showtime" will be ABS-CBN's newest noontime program effective Monday, February 6, 2012.

The new show will be hosted by Vhong Navarro, Anne Curtis, Billy Crawford, Karylle, ‘Kuya’ Kim Atienza, Teddy Corpuz, Jugs Jugueta and Vice Ganda, whose camaraderie, spontaneity, talents, and shared sense of humor have brought joy to kapamilyas.  Joining them in "It's Showtime" are dance master Jhong Hilario, and favorite "ex hurados" Ryan Bang, and Coleen Garcia.

 Together, they will be bringing a new and  more exciting show filled with surprises and engaging segments that will  make viewers experience MORE FUN IN SHOWTIME.   
ABS-CBN thanks the "madlang people, " here in the Philippines and in The Filipino Channel (TFC) markets worldwide, for being with Showtime and its hosts in their journey of bringing joy and hope every morning the past two years. ABS-CBN  invites the viewers to continue their unwavering support for Showtime as it moves to noontime, from Monday to Saturday starting February 6.