PEOPLE are talking about...
* DUTERTE DESERVING ‘TO BE PRESIDENT FOR LIFE.’ Senator Ping Lacson deserves to be president for life if Duterte meets two conditions: (1) if the president could solve the traffic problem from Cubao to Makati in six months, by specifically reducing commuting time to 5 minutes; and (2) if he could reduce air traffic delays at the NAIA in one month. Solving them would require “superhuman” capacity. It’s not massaging Duterte’s ego; it’s setting impossible conditions.
* A PRO-MARCOS FB PUBLIC GROUP’S FALSE POST OF TRUMP SUPPORTING BONGBONG. It shows the U.S. president holding what looks like a signed document with the former senator’s photo and text that reads “The Next President.” It’s a manipulated photo, Rappler reported. Trump was actually holding another official document.
Red flags
IT cannot be said that investors in Kapa Ministry International, Inc. couldn’t have been warned. A peek into his past activities would’ve shown some red flags.
A three-column feature about Kapa by Danny Abrigo of SunStar Davao (published Feb. 16, 17, 21, 2019) told the public that:
* During the period from August 2017 to July 2018, Kapa founder Joel Abaton Apolinario was charged with 102 syndicated estafa cases, involving a total of P7,163,000 monetary claim, which resulted in 27 arrest warrants. The cases however were later dismissed as the claims were “remunerated.”
* Bislig City Hall shut down Apolinario’s Kapa Cooperative and General Merchandise Store, for which Apolinario was granted in 2016 a DTI permit; the causes: failure to comply with some legal requirements and alleged promises of 30% return on capital contribution.
Already visible then were dubious shades of what Kapa has been doing, which prompted President Duterte’s June 8 order to shut down Kapa. Apparently, however, the SEC order permanently revoking Kapa corporate papers, the multiple complaints in court and, lately, the president’s order, may not be enough to stop the continual flow of capital into Kapa coffers.
Disguised unauthorized acts
Kapa cannot legally accept investments and pay interest or dividends on money it receives. Its certificate of incorporation didn’t cover that aspect of business. SEC issued a cease-and-desist order in February and made it permanent in in March. And even its corporate paper was also later cancelled.
Plus the president’s order, publicly made in a televised interview, for police and NBI to shut down Kapa...
How did Kapa disguise its allegedly illegal acts?
* By calling the investment as “donation” to the church and the interest it pays back as “gift offerings”;
* By requiring the investor to become a member before accepting the investment.
It is not known how the contract terms were expressed in writing but word of mouth has reportedly been used in recruiting members and drawing more capital from the public.
‘Church within a church’
SunStar Davao’s Danny Abrigo wrote about the claim of Kapa that it is a “church within a church.”
If it is considered a church, Abrigo said, donations to Kapa will be tax-exempt. But unlike the Catholic Church and other churches, it promises to return the money by giving high and unrealistic rates (“30 per cent” return on investment is the popular pitch) to the so-called donors.
It cannot be a church, Abrigo said, because it does not have a recognized creed and form of worship, no definite “ecclesiastical governance,” no religious assembly of its members in a church, no religious services, no ordination of pastors or ministers trained for their calling.
But religion or Kapa’s claim of being one has served a useful purpose to its main undertaking: to make itself, if not its members, rich.
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