Bunye: Staying 'fiscally fit'

TIME flies and it's the end of January. It seems like it was only last week when we promised ourselves not to linger too much near the Noche Buena table and made it our New Year's Resolution to shed off the pounds we gained during the holidays.

Geronimo: APECO not only immoral but illegal too

AS IF the voice from my church (as articulated in my piece last week) were not persuasive enough, the oppositors to the APECO (which, I must insist, does NOT stand for Angara’s Pacific Enterprises and Commercial Organization) presented the views of my compañero, Atty. Ayson Garcia, who was asked to make his assessment of the legality of the APECO.

Geronimo: More ugly than ang gara

THE good senator, Edgardo Angara, labored with might and mien to make it appear that all was pretty, or at least, all was well at the Aurora Pacific Economic Zone Authority (APEZA). He condescended to conduct on November 11, 2010 a second hearing on the proposed budget allocation for the APEZA, just to accommodate certain issues raised against the enterprise during the first hearing. But since, the APEZA was a major advocacy of the good senator, and, we must mention, also of a number in his family many of whom are holding public positions in the local and national government, it was not surprising to see a tint of self-interest in the composition of those asked to act as “resource persons.”

Geronimo: A Storm Rages in the Pacific

THE place is called “Casiguran,”; its name, it is said, comes from the Tagalog word “kasiguruhan” which in turn appears to be a corruption (neither pun nor fun nor, despite what follows below, satire intended) of the Spanish word “siguro” which means safety or security.

Bunye: Living up to BSP's mandate (1st of 2 parts)

IT WAS December 29, the last of our weekly meetings at the Monetary Board for the year, when an aide handed Governor Amando M. Tetangco Jr. an important report.

Geronimo: The hope of children

IT MUST have been the same hope that Gizela M. Gonzalez saw sustain the children she profiled recently in her book, "Where the Children Are", that had moved Jose P. Rizal, centuries earlier and himself then barely 18, to generalize and hail the young in his award winning poem as "bella esperanza de la patria mia."

Bunye: Protecting the credit card holder

HAVE you ever received a credit card through mail even without applying for it?

While some of us may have been excited at the prospect of having our very own credit card without going through the strict application process, most of us have also been baffled or even worried at the thought of strangers having easy access to our “plastic money”

Geronimo: The Sampaguita’s lovely bloom

OF THE many children featured by Gizela M. Gonzalez (“Ging” to her friends and associates) in her Where the Children Are, my immediate point of interest was the story of Rochelle and Releonor. They, like my father Felix who, I suppose, belonged to the generation of their great grandfathers, deal with sampaguita garlands: but my father only strung them; Rochelle and Releonor not only do the stringing also but distribute and sell them, too.

Bunye: Income Minus Savings Equals Expenses

THE Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, through its financial learning campaigns, has offered the Filipino public a simple financial formula: Income Minus Savings Equals Expenses.

Geronimo: Cicero meets Diogenes at the Senate

HOW could he have been so unmindful? “Brazen” is the more appropriate label for the behaviour, or better still, the more visceral colloquialism, “k---l-m-ks”; but Christmas dawn masses begin tonight and neither adjective is consistent with the clearly made-up opening stories of Matthew and Luke.

Bunye: Saving tips in a Season of Giving

IT IS indeed ironic that the jolliest time of the year has often become also the most stressful.

Geronimo: Dean Marvic Leonen's Compliant Submission

THE Compliance filed to the Supreme Court by UP Law Dean Marvic Leonen in submission to the that part of the Show Cause order of 19 October 2010 addressed to him, requiring him to explain why he submitted a dummy that was not a true and faithful reproduction of the UP Law Professors' Statement entitled "Restoring Integrity: A Statement by the Faculty of UP College of Law on Allegations of Plagiarism and Misrepresentation by the Supreme Court", is a masterful piece of making excuses.

Geronimo: Prefatory Questions on UP Law Professor’s Compliance

THE Compliance filed on 19 November 2010 by the UP academicians who were respondents in the administrative case entitled “Re: Letter of the UP Law Faculty Entitled ‘Restoring Integrity: A Statement By the Faculty of the University of the Philippines College of Law on the Allegations of Plagiarism and Misrepresentation in the Supreme Court, A.M. 10-10-4-SC” is a document worth reading. Without meaning to predict how it will eventually be evaluated, on the merits, by the Supreme Court, I am highlighting some of its major points for the public to understand both the way legal positions are usually argued by advocates and the eventual disposition of the case, whatever that disposition might turn out to be.

Bunye: Managing our money supply

"WHY don't we just print more money?"

This is a question that has probably crossed our minds, especially in times of financial need.

Geronimo: Paeng's Continuing Presence

IT IS supposedly a Chinese saying that to attain immortality, one must either write a book, or plant a tree, or sire a son. Rafael B. Buenaventura, who four years to the day this coming Tuesday, Nov. 30 was lifted to immortality, wrote the book on microfinance that sowed its seeds on fertile soil nourished by the son that bears his name.

Bunye: How the exchange rate affects us (Concluded from last week)

WITH the present peso appreciation, most Filipinos may wonder what forces are at play, which affect the peso-dollar exchange rates.

Geronimo: Intent needed to establish plagiarism

IN ITS per curiam decision in the case entitled “In the matter of the charges of plagiarism, etc. against Associate Justice Mariano C. Del Castillo” docketed as A.M. No. 10-7-17-SC and promulgated on 12 October 2010, the Supreme Court in no uncertain terms made it clear that the existence of intent to deceive is essential in determining whether an act can be characterized as plagiarism considered as a form of fraud.

Bunye: How the exchange rate affects us (1st of 2 parts)

THERE is an ongoing debate as to whether the present appreciation of the peso is good or bad news for our country.

Geronimo: On UP Diliman Executive Committee’s Web Statement

THE Statement of the University of the Philippines Diliman Executive Committee, entitled “No to Plagiarism! Asserting Academic Freedom” and dated 27 October 2010, despite my points of disagreement to be discussed below, is, in my view, a wonderful piece to behold. It effectively debunks the adage, whose originator I would like to acknowledge but do not know his or her name, that “you cannot have your cake and eat it, too.” Yes, the UP Diliman Executive Committee can.

Bunye: What Gross International Reserves means to the ordinary Filipino?

LAST September, the level of the country's gross international reserves (GIR) rose to a record-setting US$53.5 billion.

Geronimo: The cause needed to be shown

MY LATEST information is that the UP professors who on August 9 in chorus gave a show of solidarity with a rendition of a piece that began with “Restoring Integrity…” had asked for 20 days, or until November 22, to file what in their minds is the appropriate response to the Supreme Court’s show cause order of October 19.

Bunye: Helping the deaf hear again

THERE is no better way to celebrate International Hearing Awareness Month than to help the Deaf hear again.

Geronimo: Showing up the cause

THAT I am an Atenean may have something to do with my skeptical view of UP Law's recent show of force. But still, in my view, the state university's stalwarts, in their near-diatribe against the Supreme Court's most recent order in the current weather disturbance that may be called the plagiarism tempest in a tea pot, certainly "doth protest too much".

Bunye: Kapihan, BSP Style

A FEW years back, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas conceived of an ingenious way to make its employees equal partners in taking care of their own health.

Geronimo: Who owns funds of a retirement plan?

THE answer of the Supreme Court, embodied in its decision in the case of Metropolitan Bank & Trust Company, Inc. v. The Board of Trustees of Riverside Mills Corporation Provident and Retirement Fund, et al., G.R. No. 176959, promulgated on September 8, 2010, is loud and clear. The member-employees are real owners and certainly not their employer who set up the fund.

Bunye: Health education at the BSP

AT THE Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, we take health education seriously.

In celebration of Health Education Week, the BSP's Medical and Dental Clinic (MDC) zeroed in on the importance of health information through its weekly Kapihan sa Medical forum.

Geronimo: Dirty tricks of tax evaders

THE two targets of Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) Commissioner Kim Henares’ RATE cases filed Thursday last week with the Department of Justice coincidentally were in the same business: disposal of garbage. Their tricks at evading taxes were, pardon the pun, dirty.

Bunye: BSP's Campaign against Counterfeiting (Conclusion)

UNDER Republic Act No. 7653 or The New Central Bank Act, "no other person or entity, public or private, may put into circulation notes, coins or any other object or document which, in the opinion of the Monetary Board, might circulate as currency, nor reproduce or imitate the facsimiles of Bangko Sentral notes without prior authority from the Bangko Sentral."

Geronimo: Concerning compliance complacency

IT WAS a misfortune worse than being struck by lightning twice. This hapless taxpayer was struck by conviction for tax evasion three times, and all three within a short period of less than two months.

Bunye: BSP’s campaign against counterfeiting

(First of two parts)

IN THE ordinary course of things, the public usually accepts or passes currency on as legal tender, without knowing or determining if the notes and coins are genuine.