COMELEC Chairman Andres Bautista is now buried under a mountain of questions he cannot answer!

There is more than one way to skin a cat. Every time Mr Bautista tries to answer a question, he either raises another for himself or for somebody else.

Using purely the quotes above, I make a few observations :

‘People know this’ – who are these people?

‘Forex …. like pyramid scheme’ – according to Wikipedia, a pyramid scheme is similar to a Ponzi scheme, one difference being that failure to bring in new recruits usually results in no return. If Forex has been closed down, surely he would have some evidence of the ‘investments’ from the liquidators. While being defrauded is not a criminal offence, it does raise questions as to Mr. Bautista’s judgement and suitability to hold the office he does.

‘Amounts…… I am not sure’ The press has reported the balance to the last centavo. In the light of the size, you would expect him to know whether this is in the right ballpark or not.

‘deposits with Luzon Development Bank’ avoids any reference to deposits with other banks that have been quoted.

Maybe it loses in translation, but I doubt many would equate 32 with ‘several’. If they were joint accounts, do the passbooks not have the account holders as B & father, B & mother, B & brother etc., or is this something glossed over by inquirers ?

Other newspaper articles, particularly one by Rigoberto Tiglao that I have been unable to trace again,have thrown up a few interesting ‘coincidences’. Luzon Development Bank is a rural bank,owned by a family that is not only friendly with the Bautistas, but also had involvement with Liberal Party electoral management. Also none of the deposits was large enough to warrant a money-laundering report, although ,with Mr Bautista clearly within the category of Politically Exposed Person, one might expect regular deposits of PHP 3/400k to raise warning flags.

The source of much of the money is supposed to be referral fees from a law firm which ,coincidentally, is Smartmatic’s legal advisers. This makes me wonder that if the business justified that level of referral fee, the client was not big enough to have their own regular legal advisers. Equally, did the clients know that these fees were being paid,as presumably they would end up paying it themselves ?

All the above suggests to me a 3 pronged squeeze to see what juicy bits fall out
Through BIR – have the referral fees been declared for tax?

Through Bangko Sentral – If these dubious payments are being waved through LDB, how many others are ? A visit by BSP inspectors ,including interviewing members of staff, might be enlightening.

An investigation into who the clients generating the referral fees were, and what work was done to justify them. Does the Bar Council,or equivalent body, agree that paying referral fees to someone in Bautista’s position is ethical ?

Not that I see anything happening, because nobody wants to rock the boat or embarrass anybody, and everybody wants to go for the spectacular, rather than slog through and prepare a watertight case.

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