Breaking the law

At least three people who know that I am a banker (has been for more than 20 years now) asked me the same question today: If I were Mr. Pascual Garcia, would I have done the same - refuse to disclose the contents of the dollar account of Chief Justice Renato Corona?

My answer: you bet I would do the same. I would have told the senators: Your honors, I will do anything you want me to do except one thing - I will not break the law.

The bank secrecy law on foreign currency deposits is crystal clear. It says banks cannot divulge the contents of a foreign currency account unless there is a consent from the depositor. Not even the Supreme Court can compel a bank to make the disclosure. The law was designed to protect foreign investments in the country.

Those who insist that we disregard laws in order to get to the truth are in effect saying - it's okay to break the law as long as the intent is good. But it's not just about breaking a law, it's also about sending a chilling message to the investing community - banks in this country cannot guarantee secrecy of their deposits or accounts.

Those who insist that the Senate sitting as impeachment court can do anything it wants to do and that it can come up with its guidelines are missing the point. The impeachment court was created by law and should operate within the confines of the law as well.

The congressmen and senators should recognize one thing - it's their job to craft laws; it's their job to protect the integrity of laws in this country. They cannot advocate breaking the law when it suits them.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Open Letter To Our Leaders

Dear Tita Cory, Senators, Congressmen, Businessmen, Media people, Leftists, and all Bleeding Hearts Out There: I am angry. And I know that there are many out there who are angrier than I am for the same reason. And that reason is simple. I am sick and tired of all you guys claiming to speak for me and many Filipinos. I feel like screaming every time you mouth words about fighting for my freedom and my rights, when you obviously are just thinking about yours. You tell me that the essence of democracy is providing every citizen the right to speak his or her mind and make his or her own informed judgments, but you yourselves do not respect my silence and the choices I and many others have made. In other words, your concept of democracy is limited to having your rights and your freedoms respected, at the expense of ours. I am utterly flabbergasted that you still do not get it: we already responded to your calls, and our response has been very clear - we chose not to heed your calls to go t
Read more

Farewell, Victor

Image
This is my column today. Renato Victor Ebarle Jr. was at the prime of his life; barely 27 years old and just starting to build his career in human resource management. At the time of his death, he was recruitment manager of the Hotel Peninsula Manila. To say that he still had the whole world ahead of him sounds like a cliché but those among us who actually knew him, those among us who were aware of the kind of passion he had for life and for his work, people like me who had the privilege of having been consulted by him on many professional matters, know this with a certain degree of certainty. I was Victor’s professor in three major subjects when he was in college. In each one of them, he sat at the first row, which said a lot about the kind of person he was. Professors know this for a fact: Bullies don’t sit in front of the class where they cannot annoy anyone. I was his thesis adviser and he and his team spent a whole academic school year trying to break new grounds on the question o
Read more

How That Letter Came To Be...

I had some time in my hands last night. I bloghopped. For the very first time I got to read in detail what people are saying about that letter and about me in other blogs. I have already responded to most of the comments in this blog. However, I cannot possibly answer all comments given that I have only ten fingers and there are only 24 hours in a day. It is very tempting, but this blog is not my life and contrary to the overactive imagination of some people, I do not have the resources to do that. I cannot possibly monitor the thousands of blogs out there. Besides, the comments in this and other blogs (and even in the newspapers) do tend to answer each other, and I do not fancy myself as an ultimate arbiter or judge with the final and definitive opinion (I do not think anyone is qualified to do that unless that person died on a cross and resurrected in three days), so there is really not much to say after reading the various pros and cons. Some people do a better job at it anyway. I d
Read more