President Digong is not stupid to order the closure of Rappler which is highly critical of his administration.
Why would he? He knew there would be repercussions.
Only one of the commissioners of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is a Duterte appointee. The rest are Noynoy “Kuyakoy” appointees.
From where I sit, the appointees of P-Noy did what they did either for one of two reasons.
They wanted to be in the good graces of the current administration so they would be reappointed.
Or they are beholden to P-Noy and wanted to make Digong look bad in the eyes of the democratic world.
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Does a letter assailing the Navy’s preference for a certain contractor which Special Assistant to the President Bong Go forwarded to Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana amount to interference?
All Go did was send the letter to Lorenzana for his comment.
From what I heard, Go was just acting as a “forwarder” and didn’t insert his own opinion.
Trafficking of letters is his job as head of the Presidential Management Staff.
My sister, Tourism Secretary Wanda Teo, told me Go once forwarded to her an anonymous letter from someone opposed to the proposal to set up a shrine of Mazu, the Chinese goddess of the sea, on the grounds of the Cultural Center of the Philippines complex.
Wanda just told Go that the shrine would benefit the tourism industry since hundreds of thousands of Mazu devotees would visit.
Wanda said she never heard from him again.
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Lately, some local banks have been hit by the so-called account fraud in which some depositors or account holders complained their money was withdrawn without their knowledge.
The banks have noticed a significant increase since October in “fraud attacks” where debit account holders fell victim to unauthorized online and offline purchases.
Badly hit were Banco de Oro (BDO) small account holders, mostly overseas Filipino workers or OFWs.
They found that their money in the banks dwindled because of unauthorized withdrawals.
Fortunately for them, my public service program, “Isumbong Mo Kay Tulfo,” referred their complaints to BDO which immediately reimbursed their money.
Peter Louie Magdame, BDO’s chief of support services, said crime syndicates, mostly from Eastern European countries, had hacked into the world banking system and committed cyberheists such as the one that hit the Bangladesh central bank.
Depositors who notice unauthorized withdrawals from their account should immediately file a complaint in the nearest branch, he added.
BDO, for example, goes through a laborious process of tracing individual transactions and validating any irregularity before the account holder’s money is returned, he said.
“This is why it takes time for us to provide resolution to a customer’s complaint,” Magdame said.
Nota bene: BDO account holders who came to “Isumbong” and whose complaints were referred to the bank management didn’t wait long for their money to be returned.