The public will soon be getting an idea how much money Vice President Jejomar Binay and his family have in their multiple bank accounts.
The Court of Appeals (CA) has recently frozen 242 bank accounts and insurance policies belonging to the Vice President and his family, including close associates suspected of being his dummies.
Also covered by the freeze order were the bank accounts of businessman Gerry Limlingan. He is widely known as the alleged dummy and bagman of Vice President Binay when he was the mayor of Makati, as alleged by former Makati vice mayor Mercado.
Binay’s lawyers however denied that the Vice President has 242 bank accounts and insurance policies. They are claiming that Binay has only five bank accounts under his name.
The freeze order was issued by the First Division of the CA composed of Presiding Justice Andres Reyes Jr, and justices Edwin Sorongan and Ricardo Rosario.
This is the first time that bank accounts of the Vice President of the Philippines were ordered to be frozen for alleged dishonesty. Binay has long been accused by his political opponents of having accumulated hundreds of millions of pesos acquired allegedly by illicit or improper means in his long years as mayor of Makati.
It was the Anti Money Laundering Council (AMLC) that filed a petition to the CA to enable the council to scrutinize the bank accounts of the Binay family. The AMLC and the Office of the Ombudsman, in their petition to the court, want to ensure that personal assets of the Binay family that were allegedly ill gotten, will not disappear.
The bank accounts covered by the freeze order are those in Banco de Oro, Bank of the Philippine Island and Land Bank of the Philippines. The court also ordered these banks to make an immediate reporting of the total amount of money remaining in the bank accounts of the Binay family.
It will be interesting to find out how this will affect Binay’s rating as a presidential candidate. Despite being pilloried during a Senate hearing about his alleged participation in the overpriced Makati car park building, he remains to be the frontrunner for the 2016 presidential election. His ratings, however, is going down.
Among presidential wannabes, Binay has the most extensive political organization. He also has unlimited amount of financial resources that will sustain him throughout his presidential campaign. It is said that one has to spent P6 billion to mount an effective presidential campaign.
The Binay family is also the best example of a political dynasty. Beside himself as Vice President, his daughter Nancy is a Senator, another daughter is a Congresswoman representing Makati and a son who replaced him as Mayor of Makati.
Binay will be the next Philippine President, Nancy Binay will be the Senate President and Abigail Binay will be the Speaker of the House, while JunJun Binay will be the president of the Mayor’s League of the Philippines.
I wonder what will happen to the troika of Senators Trillanes, Pimentel and Cayetano once Binay wins the presidency on 2016.
In another development, former Senator Senator Panfilo Lacson is still undecided whether he will join the 2016 presidential race despite calls from a handful of workers and retired police and military officers for him to try his luck for the second time.
A group of workers and farmers belonging to the Partido ng Manggagawa at Magsasaka (PMM) have chosen Lacson as their presidential candidate in 2016. The PMM’ is launching the Lacson for President Movement next week at the Astoria Plaza in Pasig city.
If i were Lacson, I should be wary about this group. The PMM is a sham. Jose Malvar Villegas, PMM president “:kuno” does not have the clout to convince PMM members whom to vote. Besides, I doubt if PMM has more than 300 members in their organization. Most probably, as always, Malvar Villegas is just trying to make a “fast buck” on Lacson.
If ever he diecides to join the presidential race, Lacson’s candidacy will be bankrolled by the “Binondo Central Bank” just like when the former PNP chief ran against “movie king” Fernando Por Jr.