Bunye: Knowing your consumer rights

IN THE past few years, I have received numerous complaints from Filipino consumers regarding a myriad of issues -- most of them concerning credit cards.

Without most of us knowing about it, there is a way to protect ourselves from frauds and “predators” in the business and trade industry.

Geronimo: The UN, our only bet

THE matter-of-fact definitions of a “terrorist,” of “terrorist acts,” and “terrorist organization, association or group of persons,” in SubSections 3(i), 3(j) and 3(k), repectively, of Republic Act No. 10168, the “The Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012,” belies the difficulty of defining, in a manner acceptable to the family of nations, what terrorism is. They remind me of how aghast I was when my college Science teacher defined “science” as “what a scientist does.” His definition, to my youthful consternation, broke the rule drilled into our skulls during the preceding period by my Logic teacher never to use the word being defined in its definition.

Bunye: Salute to our gallant cops

THE great Indian nationalist Mahatma Gandhi once said, “The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”

Through their exemplary performance of their sworn duty as members of the Philippine National Police (PNP), four policewomen and six policemen have indeed found their life’s calling.

Bunye: BSP Quit Smoking Program

WHERE there’s no smoke, there’s no fire.

This modified version of the well-known American proverb has seemingly become the mantra of Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) employees, who celebrated the start of the BSP’s “100% Smoke-free Policy” last week.

Geronimo: Iñigo, the unlikely Ignatius

HE CERTAINLY was not what your spinster aunts would describe as "santo santito." Certainly not, if the information relayed by John W. Padberg to James Martin is reliable: He "may be the only saint with a notarized police record: for nighttime brawling with an intent to inflict serious harm."

An advocate’s initiation into mediation

FISH out of the water was how I felt. For as far back as I can remember, I had always been at the trenches at one side or the other, never (except in disputes among family members) sitting on the fence in between.

Bunye: The IMF Loan Explained (Second of Two Parts)

THIS is a continuation of an article written by an employee of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, Jason P. Raval. Jason wrote a very simple—and very clear—explanation of the BSP’s US$ 1 billion loan pledge to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Jason’s first point: the Philippines is only among the many countries that made millions of dollars in pledges to the IMF. Below are the rest of his views regarding the issue:

Geronimo: Cooperation with, not subservience to, the rest of the world

REPUBLIC Act No. 10168’s moorings to our country’s international commitments leap out of the text of the new statute. There is no way an objective reader can conclude otherwise. Critics may wish to call this shameful subservience to foreign interests; I submit it is, instead, dignified compliance with our obligations as a respectable member of the family of nations.

Bunye: Strengthening rural banks (Concluded from last week)

THE recent anniversary celebration of the Rural Bankers of the Philippines–Microenterprise Access to Banking Services (RBAP–MABS) showcased how the concept and importance of microfinance has evolved in the last 15 years.

Microfinance today is a far cry from what it was in 1997: products are no longer just loans for microenterprise, but have expanded to micro deposits, microinsurance, micro-agri, housing microfinance, and microfinance plus for growing enterprises.

Geronimo: The Anti-Terrorist Financing Law

THE recently passed Republic Act No. 10168, known as The Terrorism Financing Prevention and Suppression Act of 2012, is a special law. Not just a “special law” as understood by freshmen law students taking Criminal Law 101, meaning “not the Revised Penal Code.” But more, as the phrase is understood by non-legal persons, meaning outstanding.

Bunye: Empowering Rural Banks (First of Two Parts)

LAST month, the Rural Bankers of the Philippines–Microenterprise Access to Banking Services (RBAP–MABS) celebrated its 15th year anniversary.

Geronimo: RA No. 10167’s amendments to the AMLA

ALTHOUGH the Philippines had come up, in response to the Financial Action Task Force’s critical review, with only two laws relating to money laundering and terrorist financing, the international watch dog, last Saturday (Manila time) expressed satisfaction -- for the moment – with our efforts not by merely maintaining our previous rating of “dark gray,” but by even upgrading it to “gray.”

Bunye: Philippine Banking History Part IV

FOR the past three weeks, we have been examining the history of banking in the Philippines. In this final article, we will focus on the development of financial and legal reforms in the country in the last two decades.

Geronimo: Round one goes to Congress

MORE than just the country's grudging compliance with a suggestion from the Financial Action Task Force to conform our bank secrecy law to international standards, the law signed last Monday by PNoy, R.A. No. 10167, constitutes, in my view, but one-round in a broader struggle for supremacy between Congress and the Supreme Court. I, as self-appointed judge, score this round in favor of Congress.

Geronimo: Blow Ur Horn, Batanes

“WHY Batanes?” was the question uniformly asked by those whom I had to advise that I was not going to be at the office on Thursday and Friday of last week. My identical answer was, purposely trying to seem politely responsive but really being privacy protective, “Because for a change, I would like to visit a place less travelled, at least for now.”

Geography and weather are the reasons often cited why not many have not gone to the province of Batanes.

Bunye: History of banking in the Philippines (Part I)

MAYBE you’ve wondered when the business of banking first came about in the Philippines. Or maybe, you’re curious if banks existed during the Spanish and American colonial periods, and how they fared during the Japanese occupation.

As always, history provides the best answers to these questions. The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) has published a very informative book, “The General Banking Law Annotated: Book 2,” which details the history of banking in the Philippines.

Geronimo: A crowning boo-boo of Renato

BY THE time this column sees the light of day, the dark night of the Impeachment Trial shall have been over. And while the process we have gone through, particularly its twists and turns, is, in senses more than one, sui generis, some subjects that were highlighted during the hearings remain to be of general interest, if not of concern. These are the subjects that somehow or another affect us personally; among them is the matter of foreign currency bank deposits.

Renato C. Corona, on the witness stand last May 22, asserted that the foreign exchange rate between the Philippine peso and the US dollar at the time, he, during the late 60s, started investing his funds in the latter currency was only 2:1. Asked to be more precise, he responded by recalling that up to 1969, the exchange rate was still at 2:1 and that it went up to 6:1 when it was allegedly “devalued to floating rate” in January 1970.

Bunye: Of Vacations and Deposits

THERE is a Chinese proverb that says: too much of anything is not good. In the case of the Palawan Underground River, which recently earned a place on the prestigious “The New 7 Wonders of Nature,” it’s too much passengers and too little “organization.”

Geronimo: Jurisprudence on the AMLA

BECAUSE of the current interest on what the Anti-Money Laundering Law is all about, I asked two students from the Ateneo School of Law, Dan Abraham G. Guinigundo and Ma. Lourdes N. Colinares, both currently doing their legal internship at the law office I work in, to gather for me the resolutions issued and cases decided to date by the Supreme Court relating to the Anti-Money Laundering Law from the time it was enacted to the present. The original version was enacted into law on September 29, 2001; it was subsequently amended on March 7, 2003 by R.A. No. 9194.

Bunye: The Importance of Good Credit (Last of two parts)

THE recent commemoration of Credit Consciousness Week (April 24 to 30, 2012) was a special opportunity to learn about the importance of good credit.

Last week, we discussed how important credit score is in personal finance. It can affect our application for mainly all types of loans: while good credit helps boost credit score, bad credit almost always pulls it down.

Geronimo: Confronting the ugly face of disasters

WHILE most of the Philippine business community were, during the first Thursday of this month (May 3), at seminars and conferences of the 45th Annual Meeting of the Board of Governors of the Asian Development Bank at the Philippine International Convention Center, in the City of Manila, a few others were on the other side of town, at the Rockwell Campus of the Ateneo de Manila University in the City of Makati at the Roundtable on Business Continuity Planning conducted under the auspices of the school and Manila Observatory.

Bunye: The importance of good credit (First of two parts)

IN THE Philippines, the word credit is usually associated with “utang,” thus the ubiquitous “Your Credit is Good But We Need Cash” signboards in many of our local carinderia and sari-sari stores.

Since the word “utang” (debt) has developed such a negative connotation in Filipino culture, its English counterpart has received a relatively bad reputation as well.

Bunye: Regulation of Pawnshops (Concluded from last week)

FINANCIAL consumers, especially those who transact with pawnshops, would be happy to know that the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) actively supervises pawnshop operations.

In addition to coordinating with local government units in weeding out businesses illegally operating as pawnshops, the Bangko Sentral also conducts inspections of pawnshops to ensure that they adhere to applicable laws, rules and regulations.

Geronimo: One rule for us, another for the big boys

WHEN we lowly folks, not knowing that they are fake, use counterfeit bills to pay our taxes, the Bureau of Internal Revenue through its authorized agent banks, spotting the forgery, correctly rejects our payment. Our taxes remain unpaid; and we are left to our own devices to settle our problem with those who passed the Mickey Mouse money to us. Not so with the big boys, like Petron Corporation.

Bunye: Regulation of pawnshops (First of Two Parts)

PAWNSHOPS have proliferated in the country. Have you ever wondered if they are supervised by any government agency to protect financial consumers?

According to the Integrated Supervision Division II (ISD II) of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP), the financial system is composed of two groups: banks and non-financial intermediaries (investment houses, savings and loan associations, brokerage, etc.).

Geronimo: The 9th Phil Non-Life Insurance Summit

SOMEBODY up there likes him. Exactly two weeks before Reynaldo A. De Dios is to hold his 9th yearly summit for the region's insurance industry on April 25, 2012 at the InterContinental Hotel in Makati City, an undersea earthquake, described by CNN as "the largest earthquake of its type ever recorded" occurs in Sumatra. Recorded at 8.6 on the Richter scale, the quake known as a "strike-slip", i.e. "where two sides of a fault horizontally slip past each other" excited the scientific community. Says Director Kerry Seih of the Earth Observatory of Singapore: "Before that we thought at 8.1 was as big as they get, but this 8.6 quake was phenomenal. It has been jaw-dropping and has caused a lot of foment among seismologists."

Bunye: Lessons of hope and faith behind prison walls

Lessons of hope and faith can sometimes be found in unlikely places.

I had the honor of giving the inspirational speech during the 54th Commencement Exercises of the Muntinlupa National Extension High School this week.

Geronimo: Easter on cross by law

ANYONE who has just as much legal brains in his head as Justice Serafin Cuevas has in his little finger is certain to find as objectionable from the legal point of view, the gospels’ allegation that Jesus of Nazareth rose or was risen from the dead.

Bunye: BSP as Supervisor and Regulator (Concluded from last week)

LAST week, I discussed how the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas acts as the supervisor and regulator of financial institutions such as banks, quasi-banks, trust entities, savings and loan associations, and pawnshops.

Letter to the Editor: Curbing Corruption - It starts with small things and self-introspection

WE OFTEN criticize and blame others of being corrupt and we imagine them as scheming and evil free loaders like the protagonists we see in the movies blatantly pocketing all the ill-gotten money with no shame.