Inimpeach-impeach nila si Corona, pero sila lumalabas ngayon na sinungaling!
Loren’s hidden $700K Manhattan condo bared
- Written by Tribune
- Thursday, 02 May 2013 00:00
US assets not included in SALn makes her liable for graft, perjury
Re-electionist Sen. Loren Legarda was one of 20 senators who had voted to convict impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona for not declaring his dollar accounts as well as his properties where he failed to state the acquisition cost in his Statement of Assets and Liabilities and net worth (SALn).
However, it appears, from photos and documents obtained by the Tribune yesterday that Legarda herself has not declared her condominium asset in Manhattan, New York City.
This has led Louis “Barok” Biraogo, a declared public interest advocate that Legarda may be as “guilty” as the impeached Chief Justice in not declaring all of her properties in her SALn.
Biraogo stated emphatically that: “I have all the documentary evidence. I have the smoking gun needed to prove that Legarda does not deserve to stay a minute longer as a senator of the land.”
He stressed that “Legarda should be ashamed to even be campaigning on the same stage as President Aquino under his daang-matuwid (straight path) platform.”
Biraogo claimed that Legarda has been concealing for five years her purchase on May 9, 2006 of a posh condominium unit in New York City. He bared that Legarda had paid in full and in cash the princely price of $700,000 or about P36 million in the exchange rate prevailing in 2006 to acquire the condo unit at #77 Park Avenue, which is a very expensive area in New York where the Rockefellers and Trumps also have properties.
For Legarda to have the ready cash of $700,000 or close to three quarters of a million dollars, it was also asked by others whether she had declared her dollar account in her SALns.
A Youtube video has been making the rounds of her posh condo and the many documents attesting to her ownership of the Manhattan condo, as well as copies of her SALns, where her acquisitions and her total assets failed to reflect either her condominium or her correct total assets.
Even her home in Urdaneta Village was not listed as part of her assets, even when it belongs to her, as she listed this down as a corporation known as Loren Legarda and Associates, where her relatives own one share each while she owns the rest.
Armed with Legarda’s SALns which the senator challenged anyone to secure as they are “public record,” Biraogo pointed out that Legarda hid from public scrutiny the condo unit she bought in 2006 by not declaring it in her SALns covering the years 2007 up to 2010.
“Lo and behold! It was only in her 2011 SALn that Legarda declared for the very first time her ownership of a property in America which she claimed she had acquired for P27,800,000. Let’s not forget that she filed her 2011 SALn at about the time when the impeachment trial of Corona was already at fever pitch,” said Biraogo.
Deathly afraid?
“What made Legarda declare a US property in her 2011 SALN? Was it because she became very, very afraid that she would be in the same boat as Corona – that her hidden condo unit at #77 Park Avenue would be found? Well, as it turns out, she has every reason to be deathly afraid,” said Biraogo.
Whether or not the US property referred to by Legarda in her 2011 SALn is the same as the one at #77 Park Avenue, Biraogo said Legarda, “like Corona before her, is already damaged goods” because the late declaration would not absolve her of what he calls the wrongdoing.
“She should consider withdrawing from the May elections because she will face removal like what happened to Corona. Despite her self-righteous stance during the trial of Corona, Legarda has every reason to be afraid, more afraid now that the truth has finally come out on her US property,” said Biraogo.
“What do we have in Senator Legarda now, a veritable Lady Corona? Well, I suggest she hire a good lawyer because she may be facing plunder raps and multiple counts of money laundering, as well as graft and corruption and perjury charges. She has to explain where she got the money to buy such an expensive property,” said Biraogo.
“Legarda’s declaration of a US property in her 2011 SALn was a pathetic attempt at cover-up because she, as a senator, should know better than most that the SALn law is very specific on the details that a SALn filer must input on the SALn form,” said Biraogo.
“With Legarda leaving blank in the SALn form the details that would have identified the location of that unspecified US property, as well as its current fair market value or if improvements had been done on it, she might as well have not declared it all.”
Huge increases
The pertinent laws governing SALns are strict that public officials must detail all of their assets and liabilities, including the acquisition and fair market value and the addresses of real properties, as well as their investments and bank deposits.
Biraogo noted the huge increase in Legarda’s net worth – from P45,545,565 in 2010 to P68,553,755 in 2011 ; and the big increase in her cash on hand in banks — from P180,000 in 2010 to P7,963,190 in 2011.
He stressed that huge increases in the net worth of public officials, if unsupported by commensurate sources of income, are automatically deemed to be ill-gotten wealth.
“Legarda paid $700,000 in 2006 for the unit at #77 Park Avenue or P35,980,000 at the exchange rate of P51.40-$1 at the time. If that’s the same unit referred to by Legarda in her 2011 SALn, then she undervalued it by claiming the acquisition cost to be just P27,800,000” said Biraogo.
“Using the peso-exchange rate in 2011 instead of the prevailing rate in 2006 may be another clue that Legarda was already frazzled, dazed and confused even, when she declared that acquisition cost of P27,800,000.”
Biraogo said that if Legarda admits that the unit at #77 Park Avenue was what was being referred to in her 2011 SALn, then the harder question for her to answer would be why was the property she bought in 2006 declared only in her 2011 SALn?”
Legarda and the majority of the senators last year ousted Corona from the Supreme Court after finding him guilty of mis- and non-declarations in his SALns of assets, including ownership of several condo units.
Same yardstick
Biraogo said that Legarda should suffer the same fate as Corona, adding that “sauce for the goose should also be sauce for the gander. “
“Senator Legarda should be measured with the same yardstick she used in convicting Corona for being untruthful in his SALn,” said Biraogo, who said he got interested in digging deep into Legarda’s SALn and properties when he learned that their alma mater, the University of the Philippines, would be honoring her as a top alumna.
Biraogo has figured in many national issues and celebrated court cases, starting in his sophomore law student year in UP Diliman when he sued then UP president Edgardo Angara all the way to the Supreme Court for increasing UP’s tuition and other fees by 350 percent.
In 1985, Biraogo challenged before the SC the constitutionality of the snap presidential election which triggered the 1986 People Power Revolt. He also contested in court the customs duties slapped on imported reading materials, pressuring then President Gloria Arroyo into ordering then Finance Secretary Margarito Teves to honor the Philippines’ being a signatory of Florence Treaty forbidding the slapping of customs duties on reading materials.
Re-electionist Sen. Loren Legarda was one of 20 senators who had voted to convict impeached Chief Justice Renato Corona for not declaring his dollar accounts as well as his properties where he failed to state the acquisition cost in his Statement of Assets and Liabilities and net worth (SALn).
However, it appears, from photos and documents obtained by the Tribune yesterday that Legarda herself has not declared her condominium asset in Manhattan, New York City.
This has led Louis “Barok” Biraogo, a declared public interest advocate that Legarda may be as “guilty” as the impeached Chief Justice in not declaring all of her properties in her SALn.
Biraogo stated emphatically that: “I have all the documentary evidence. I have the smoking gun needed to prove that Legarda does not deserve to stay a minute longer as a senator of the land.”
He stressed that “Legarda should be ashamed to even be campaigning on the same stage as President Aquino under his daang-matuwid (straight path) platform.”
Biraogo claimed that Legarda has been concealing for five years her purchase on May 9, 2006 of a posh condominium unit in New York City. He bared that Legarda had paid in full and in cash the princely price of $700,000 or about P36 million in the exchange rate prevailing in 2006 to acquire the condo unit at #77 Park Avenue, which is a very expensive area in New York where the Rockefellers and Trumps also have properties.
For Legarda to have the ready cash of $700,000 or close to three quarters of a million dollars, it was also asked by others whether she had declared her dollar account in her SALns.
A Youtube video has been making the rounds of her posh condo and the many documents attesting to her ownership of the Manhattan condo, as well as copies of her SALns, where her acquisitions and her total assets failed to reflect either her condominium or her correct total assets.
Even her home in Urdaneta Village was not listed as part of her assets, even when it belongs to her, as she listed this down as a corporation known as Loren Legarda and Associates, where her relatives own one share each while she owns the rest.
Armed with Legarda’s SALns which the senator challenged anyone to secure as they are “public record,” Biraogo pointed out that Legarda hid from public scrutiny the condo unit she bought in 2006 by not declaring it in her SALns covering the years 2007 up to 2010.
“Lo and behold! It was only in her 2011 SALn that Legarda declared for the very first time her ownership of a property in America which she claimed she had acquired for P27,800,000. Let’s not forget that she filed her 2011 SALn at about the time when the impeachment trial of Corona was already at fever pitch,” said Biraogo.
Deathly afraid?
“What made Legarda declare a US property in her 2011 SALN? Was it because she became very, very afraid that she would be in the same boat as Corona – that her hidden condo unit at #77 Park Avenue would be found? Well, as it turns out, she has every reason to be deathly afraid,” said Biraogo.
Whether or not the US property referred to by Legarda in her 2011 SALn is the same as the one at #77 Park Avenue, Biraogo said Legarda, “like Corona before her, is already damaged goods” because the late declaration would not absolve her of what he calls the wrongdoing.
“She should consider withdrawing from the May elections because she will face removal like what happened to Corona. Despite her self-righteous stance during the trial of Corona, Legarda has every reason to be afraid, more afraid now that the truth has finally come out on her US property,” said Biraogo.
“What do we have in Senator Legarda now, a veritable Lady Corona? Well, I suggest she hire a good lawyer because she may be facing plunder raps and multiple counts of money laundering, as well as graft and corruption and perjury charges. She has to explain where she got the money to buy such an expensive property,” said Biraogo.
“Legarda’s declaration of a US property in her 2011 SALn was a pathetic attempt at cover-up because she, as a senator, should know better than most that the SALn law is very specific on the details that a SALn filer must input on the SALn form,” said Biraogo.
“With Legarda leaving blank in the SALn form the details that would have identified the location of that unspecified US property, as well as its current fair market value or if improvements had been done on it, she might as well have not declared it all.”
Huge increases
The pertinent laws governing SALns are strict that public officials must detail all of their assets and liabilities, including the acquisition and fair market value and the addresses of real properties, as well as their investments and bank deposits.
Biraogo noted the huge increase in Legarda’s net worth – from P45,545,565 in 2010 to P68,553,755 in 2011 ; and the big increase in her cash on hand in banks — from P180,000 in 2010 to P7,963,190 in 2011.
He stressed that huge increases in the net worth of public officials, if unsupported by commensurate sources of income, are automatically deemed to be ill-gotten wealth.
“Legarda paid $700,000 in 2006 for the unit at #77 Park Avenue or P35,980,000 at the exchange rate of P51.40-$1 at the time. If that’s the same unit referred to by Legarda in her 2011 SALn, then she undervalued it by claiming the acquisition cost to be just P27,800,000” said Biraogo.
“Using the peso-exchange rate in 2011 instead of the prevailing rate in 2006 may be another clue that Legarda was already frazzled, dazed and confused even, when she declared that acquisition cost of P27,800,000.”
Biraogo said that if Legarda admits that the unit at #77 Park Avenue was what was being referred to in her 2011 SALn, then the harder question for her to answer would be why was the property she bought in 2006 declared only in her 2011 SALn?”
Legarda and the majority of the senators last year ousted Corona from the Supreme Court after finding him guilty of mis- and non-declarations in his SALns of assets, including ownership of several condo units.
Same yardstick
Biraogo said that Legarda should suffer the same fate as Corona, adding that “sauce for the goose should also be sauce for the gander. “
“Senator Legarda should be measured with the same yardstick she used in convicting Corona for being untruthful in his SALn,” said Biraogo, who said he got interested in digging deep into Legarda’s SALn and properties when he learned that their alma mater, the University of the Philippines, would be honoring her as a top alumna.
Biraogo has figured in many national issues and celebrated court cases, starting in his sophomore law student year in UP Diliman when he sued then UP president Edgardo Angara all the way to the Supreme Court for increasing UP’s tuition and other fees by 350 percent.
In 1985, Biraogo challenged before the SC the constitutionality of the snap presidential election which triggered the 1986 People Power Revolt. He also contested in court the customs duties slapped on imported reading materials, pressuring then President Gloria Arroyo into ordering then Finance Secretary Margarito Teves to honor the Philippines’ being a signatory of Florence Treaty forbidding the slapping of customs duties on reading materials.
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