It’s the economy, intrepid!

It looks like serial state visits for our leader Benigno Simeon (a.k.a. BS), who reportedly is doing two of them early next month, both first-time “state” visits, and all in one go for a total of four days.

After a two-day visit to the United Kingdom, he is scheduled to fly to Washington for a two-day state visit. Perhaps the two-in-one trip is going to cost less. We all know that the Aquino (Part II) administration is budget-conscious. Right, Butch?

In that grueling four-day swing, the intrepid BS will be traveling across six time zones. And they say that this guy is a slacker?

The forthcoming presidential serial visits seem to be focused on Philippine economic issues, particularly the effort of the administration to promote foreign investments here.

From what I heard, despite the late insertion of the London leg into the presidential trip, some big investments by British groups in the Philippines are going to be firmed up during the visit, with BS to witness the signing of the documents.

The ventures deal with energy, infrastructure, natural gas, BPO and mineral processing. Thus, the Palace already had a ready lineup for the business delegation to the London leg of the serial trip.

From what I gathered, BS also wants to have with him a business delegation to the US visit, although less than a year ago, in September 2011, he already went on a working visit to the US, bringing home at that time some $2.8 billion in investments by US groups in the Philippines.

The Department of Trade and Industry has several projects in the pipeline involving US groups. Maybe the serial trip of BS can help those groups firm up their ventures here.

It is always an advantage for foreign investors to have BS as witness in any business document signing. Things hardly get stalled, particularly on the government side.

Presumably, the business delegation in the presidential visit to the US will be a different set from the business delegation in the London leg. I am not sure that big-time corporate executives are willing to travel across six time zones in four days.

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Why do certain people in the government, all of a sudden, fear the power of the Ombudsman? I can only think of one reason: This Ombudsman means business.

The relatively new Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales, who is a retired justice of the Supreme Court, perhaps served them notice of her resoluteness in doing her job to run after the crooks in the government, as she testified in the trial of her former colleague in the High Court, Chief Justice Renato Corona, in effect burying the Chief Justice with her testimony.

Armed with a report from the AMLC, or the Anti-Money Laundering Council, the Ombudsman revealed that the Chief Justice had some $12 million in deposits in some 82 accounts in five banks.

As I said previously, banks are obligated to report to the AMLC any deposit of more than $10,000 so that the reported dollar deposits of the Chief Justice, if they really exist, are sure to land on the AMLC radar.

You can say that the AMLC, in turn, has an obligation to provide the Ombudsman with records of suspicious bank transactions, including those of the Chief Justice, precisely because the Ombudsman under the law has the power to ask for assistance from other government agencies.

Morales knew how to use the power of the Ombudsman under the law when she asked the AMLC for a report on the dollar accounts of the Chief Justice, something that we could hardly say about her predecessor, the Gloriaetta appointee Merceditas Gutierrez.

Members of the AMLC also did their job when they furnished Morales with a 17-page report, detailing Corona’s multimillion-dollar transactions.

The thing is, how come the Chief Justice has 82 dollar accounts spread out in five banks, which are indeed a lot of accounts—and a lot of banks—for one man? Was the intention behind those scattered deposits really to escape detection by the AMLC? Well, the standard cut-off amount for banks to report suspicious dollar deposits to the AMLC is $10,000.

For banks to avoid having to report those $12 million, at the cut-off of $10,000 per account, the Chief Justice would have had to scatter them to more than 1,200 accounts.

But to the guys down here in my barangay, the real question is this: Considering the toxic workload in the Supreme Court, with all those pending cases, not to mention the part of the job of supervising the entire judiciary, how does the Chief Justice find the time to manage all those 82 accounts?

Since he must manage all those 82 accounts, how does he find the time to do all the work of the Chief Justice?

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Anyway, it is clear that Carpio-Morales is on a crusade against graft and corruption, in a way supporting the campaign promise of the Aquino (Part II) administration. This woman withdrew her name from the list of candidates for the position of Chief Justice during the time of the cute administration, which eventually was taken by Corona over Senior Associate Justice Antonio Carpio. At that time, the appointment by Gloriaetta of a new Chief Justice became a big issue, it being a “midnight appointment,” as Gloriaetta was already on the way out then. The much bigger issue was the Supreme Court ruling that favored Corona’s appointment as Chief Justice.

We have to remember it was Morales who wrote a dissenting opinion to that SC ruling.

Here is the deal with Morales as Ombudsman: The Supreme Court cannot issue the usual injunction or TRO (such as the one the court issued against the impeachment court over the opening of the dollar accounts of the Chief Justice) against her investigation on the same dollar accounts, unless of course the issue is purely a question of law.

Where does the Chief Justice run to now?