here is an article from a Pampanga blog in 2010 about local fishemen opposing the casino in Manila...it names names and links.
The Pamalakaya leader said Enrique Razon Jr., head of multinational port operator International Container Terminal Services, Inc. (ICTSI) and a known crony of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo has bought a gaming company that will build a casino at the Bagong Nayong Pilipino project....
Hicap learned last week that Razon had acquired a controlling stake in Bloombury investment Holdings Inc from Jose Ch. Alvarez, owner of Columbian Motors Corp. ..
The other companies granted licenses were Travellers International Hotel Group, Inc., the partnership between the Andrew L. Tan-led Alliance Global, Inc. and casino-resort operator Genting Hong Kong Ltd., SM Investments Corp. and Universal Entertainment Corp. (formerly Azure Corp.), which makes gaming machines and is a co-investor in the Wynn chain of casino hotels in Las Vegas and Macau
The Catholic bishops have been opposing Casinos for years, but some are more vocal than others LINK...
.This Phil Inquirer article Dec 2012 quotes old leftie activist Archbishop Cruz (whose blog I often link to) about the problem and the Solaire casino which was promoted by the present administration:
Imagine: Money laundering via Casinos. Who wudda thot?
The 78-year-old leader of the Krusada ng Bayan Laban sa Jueteng said the casinos would invite “goons and gangsters” who would engage in money laundering and prostitution, thus threatening Filipino values.
There is a connection between the casinos and Chinese money. But I won't go into that. But if this is true, the question is: are the hackers Chinese?
-------------------
PhilRem was involved: they help send home remittances from our overseas workers.
March 18 article Phil Star says they were involved in converting the stolen cash into pesos. They said they would return the P10 million fee they collected for doing the transaction. (about 200 thousand dollars)
and today's PhilInq reports:
MANILA — Senatorial candidate Susan “Toots” Ople is asking the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) why the Philippine Remittance Co. (Philrem) and its owners led by Salud Bautista were not charged in the laundering of $81 million stolen by cyber thieves from the Bangladesh central bank.
Notice how the article is worded? The problem is that we have a libel law in the Philippines, so if a reporter (and maybe if a blogger) accuses someone they can be sued for libel. So the reporters find a big shot to quote instead, and you read between the lines.
also in today's Inquirer: there are rumors that they will start naming names. The article has a lot of hints and winks in it, and notes that the upcoming elections are part of the back story (the politicians with links to the thieves don't want the story to get out).
And to figure out what is going on, you have to know who is linked with whom (by family, by marriage, by business links, or maybe they studied together in college).
Or you could just shrug like my husband and say "they are all thieves".
And say a prayer for local reporters: the usual way to stop a story being reported is to kill the messenger, and reporters have been shot for less.
No comments:
Post a Comment