inside Philippine politics and beyond
My exclusive By Raïssa Robles Retired Associate Justice Serafin Cuevas is probably one of the best defense lawyers in the country. However, he doesn’t seem to do as well during cross-examination. At least twice, Cuevas has stumbled during cross-examination. He enabled tax chief Kim Henares to enter even more damaging evidence against his client, Supreme Court Chief Justice Renato Corona. [...]
Think about it By Raïssa Robles In the course of my investigations I gather bits and pieces of information which can’t be developed into long stories but can be used to form a pattern of analysis and lead to informed speculation. When I say “informed”, I mean informed as a journalist who has been in the news business for several [...]
Read banker Clarissa Ocampo’s testimony By Raïssa Robles It was Clarissa Ocampo’s alluring perfume that prompted President Joseph Estrada to see her in person. “Sobrang bango niya,” a presidential bodyguard told Estrada. This was what a senior banker recently told me, in turn quoting an eyewitness of that fateful event on the night of February 4, 2000. Estrada’s encounter with [...]
A commentary By Raïssa Robles Everyone assumes that all the US dollars that Chief Justice Renato Corona stashed in banks are covered by the bank secrecy law. Let me offer the theory that they might not be ALL covered and the Senate impeachment court can legally look into them. Yes, I know I am a mere reporter with no formal [...]
Expresses support for my work Because the name of South China Morning Post (HK), the newspaper I write for, was being dragged as well into the messy political battle, I had to inform my immediate editor at the Foreign Desk, Andrew London, of this fact. This was after The Daily Tribune owner-publisher Ninez Cacho-Olivares wrote that based on her “a impeachable [...]
By Raïssa Robles Friday I phoned Ninez Cacho-Olivares of The Daily Tribune to ask how I was supposed to have obtained the bank documents of Chief Justice Renato Corona from a certain Gigi Sawit and handed these personally to Congressman Rey Umali. I had never met them both, I told her. I could hear the surprise in her voice [...]
By Raïssa Robles Yesterday I was surprised when one of my sources told me there was word going around that I was the “Little Lady” who had leaked the bank documents of Chief Justice Corona to a House prosecutor. I realized then I had just become part of the story. By the way, for the record, I am NOT the [...]
By Raïssa Robles In January 2001, Joker Arroyo took the lead in asking the Senate impeachment court to subpoena Cathy Weir, then president of Citibank N.A., in order to produce records on then President Joseph Estrada’s dollar deposits. Arroyo was then a House senior prosecutor in Estrada’s impeachment trial. A grateful nation subsequently voted Joker Arroyo to the Senate [...]
My Exclusive By Raïssa Robles Almost a year ago, the Supreme Court led by Renato Corona affirmed the conviction and jail sentence of Rosalio Galeos for making “false” and “incomplete” declarations in his Statement of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth (SALN) for four successive years. Galeos’ case and that of his co-accused, former Naga, Cebu mayor Paulino Ong, are [...]
By Raïssa Robles Chief Justice Renato Corona’s lawyers would like the public to believe that the under declarations and omissions in his SALNs (Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth) are all “not intentional”. What the lawyers aren’t saying is that CJ Corona was a tax and corporate lawyer who once worked for two banks and for SGV & [...]
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