Spanish Legacy

Brod,

Giving back California to Mexico?  Is the US crazy?  It is the largest economy of the US.  US will suddenly become a third world country.  Won't happen.  Just annex Mexico instead.  Think of this: Why are the Mexicans escaping Mexico's poor economic condition, and then if they ever "took back California" why would want to get back under Mexico anyway.  They already know life is hard under the inept Mexican government.  

Here is a chronology of the salient points in Mexican, Texan and Californian history:

Spain lays claim to Texas - 1519

France lays claim to Texas - 1685
Planning to expand its base from French Louisiana, France took a bold step in 1685, planting its flag in eastern Texas near the Gulf Coast. Although claimed by Spain, most of Texas had no Spanish presence at all; the nearest Spanish settlements were hundreds of miles distant.

Mexico lays claim to Mexico - 1521

Spain establishes colony in California - 1769

Mexico declares independence from Span - 1821

Mexican-American war ended - 1848

While the Mexican-American war ended after Mexico was already independent from Spain, this has no relevance to the validity of the claim that Mexico owned Texas and California.  The reason is that Spain claimed these lands, not Mexico.  Note above that there was no real physical presence of Mexico in Texas (France lays claim to Texas).  That Spain/Mexico owned Texas was only a reality in their minds.

The world was a different place at that time.  The more progressive countries claimed every land where their ships landed as their.  What legal basis did they have?  Nothing.  They used religion to subjugate the indegenious people to instill fear of hell if they did not submit to the Spaniards.  As such, when the US took these lands from Mexico, they had as much right as the Spaniards and the Mexicans.

Now, try to do that and you run afoul with international law and the UN (Korean War).

Now, do we agree?

Brods,

I agree with you but for one little item. I though they fought the Mexicans at the Alamo.
Was Mexico still under Spain during that time? I am lazy to research. And also, even under Spanish rule did the Mexicans still not feel Mechicanos (Not from the Pampanga province)?

Even when the Philippines was under Spain did not our forefathers think themselves Pinoys rather than Spanish (but for some characters Jose Rizal portrayed as Spanish-Pilipino= Sppil?  Spanish-American =Spam?).

America should give them California back and as a gesture of fair play like the stuff they gave the American Indians. Have you been to the Indian casinos? These are sparsely vegetated
areas in rocky isolated mountains where survival is almost nil. No wonder not too many Native
Americans are left.

I, for one, do not believe in these "Native whoevers" wanting special privileges because they gone taken over. We cannot roll back history for them.

Birthday Greetings

You're being watch (well, at least before supper or before the early bird special), by those senior "volunteers" in the DMV, or those in the neighborhood watch, or the Walmart greeters. They're agents for the AARP. They spot potential recruits and transmit vitals to the "service". Hence, as soon as you hit 50, there's that letter waiting for you to join the ranks. (I've been reading too much spy stuff lately).

Well ... (another advantage of hitting 50) ... think of all the discounts you're entitled to.

Anyway, today sa nytimes, column ni Timothy Egan ... writers who did their best in their older years. I guess athletes do need to be younger because of strength; but stuff that requires brain power, like writing, which you do, benefit from experience.

Look at Clint Eastwood. He never fails to mess up the bad guys -- at ANY age. Have you ever seen him get angry, lose his temper? Nope, yet, all the bad guys around him drop dead. I'm thinking High Plains Drifter -- and the clink/clank of his boots on that boardwalk. If you're a bad guy and you hear his boots and see him coming, you know you better not mess with "the Stranger" or "the Preacher". Anyway, that was when he was young, exuding strength & vigor. Understandably so.

Then, in Gran Torino (Clint in his late 70s), I'm thinking of the scene where he got out of that really old Ford pickup truck to aid the Hmong teenage girl being harassed by punks (or sa pinas, mga gomma). He told the punks, "Have you ever in your life met someone that you should never f. with?" (or something like that), he pulls out a 45 caliber colt (maybe it was even a 1911 Springfield issue, the point is, who uses a 45 caliber colt this age; usually you'll see a beretta or a glock). I guess, Clint did age -- he didn't kill the bad guys in that movie -- he did put them out though.

Oh well, another thing that bodes well for me when I hit retirement age -- aside from the coveted AARP membership, early bird specials, discounts in everything, and if we still have money, Medicare -- is that the Peace Corps has a program for retirees. I've always wanted to serve in the Peace Corps ever since I met a lot of Peace Corps folks in grad school (very good people indeed).

Have fun, brod, and I know you will not go gentle into that good night.

Email Conversation

It's not the politics of it that I sent this, but the subtle "humor"  that goes with the whole story.

The Dallas Solution


I  have a friend who is president of his homeowners association in a Dallas, Texas suburb. They were having a terrible problem with litter near some of his association' s homes. The reason according to my friend is that six very large, luxurious new houses are being built right next to their community.

The trash was coming from the Mexican laborers working at the construction sites and included bags from McDonald's, Burger King and 7-11, plus coffee cups, napkins, cigarette butts, coke cans, empty bottles, etc. He went to see the site supervisor and even the general contractor, politely urging them to get their workers not to litter the neighborhood, to no avail. He called the city, county, and police and got no help there either.



  So here's what his community did. They organized about twenty folks, named themselves The "Inner Neighborhood Services" group, and arranged to go out at lunch time and "police" the trash themselves. It is what they did while picking up the trash that is so hilarious.

 They bought navy blue baseball caps and had the initials "INS" embroidered in gold on the caps.

  It doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand what they hoped people might mistakenly think the letters really stand for..

After the Inner Neighborhood Services group's first lunch time pickup detail, with all of them wearing their caps and some carrying cameras, 46 out of the total of 68 construction workers did not show up for work the
next morning -- and haven't come back yet.

It has been ten days now.

The General Contractor, I'm told, is madder than hell, but can't say anything publicly because he could be busted for hiring illegal aliens. My  friend and his bunch can't be accused of impersonating federal personnel, because they have the official name of the group recorded in their homeowner association minutes along with a notation about the vote to approve formation of the new subcommittee -- and besides, they informed the INS in advance of their plans, and according to my friend, the INS said basically,
 
"Have at it!"

SO, FOLKS, I THINK YOU COULD SAY THAT TEXAS INGENUITY TRIUMPHS AGAIN!

Reminder: Don't forget to pay your taxes....... 12 million illegal aliens are depending on you.

No apology for sending this! ! ! After hearing they want to sing the National Anthem in Spanish - enough is enough. Nowhere did they sing it in Italian, Polish, Irish (Celtic), German or any other language because of immigration. It was written by Francis Scott Key and should be sung word for word the way it was written. The news broadcasts even gave the translation -- not even close.

I'm NOT sorry if this offends anyone because this is MY COUNTRY - IF IT IS YOUR COUNTRY SPEAK UP -- please pass this along. Come through like everyone else. APPLY FIRST - Get a sponsor; have a place to lay your head; have a  job; pay your taxes, live by the rules AND LEARN THE LANGUAGE as all other immigrants have in the past -- and GOD BLESS AMERICA!

PART OF THE PROBLEM

Think about this: If you don't want to forward this for fear of offending someone -- YOU'RE PART OF THE PROBLEM! It is Time for America to Speak   up. No wonder California is in such financial trouble!

 Yep, I passed it on!

 Calling an illegal alien an 'undocumented immigrant' is like calling a drug dealer an 'unlicensed pharmacist'

*.**"You make a living by what you get, but you make a life by what you give"*

Philippines and Spain

Email on immigration.

I guess 'INS' didn't need translation for them anarchists!
I don't have anything against Latin Americans or Hispanics
I rooted for Spain in the World Cup
But I have a bone to pick with Spain

The Spanish colonizers kept us in the doldrums of ignorance for about 300 years
Education then was only for the rich, the ilustrados or mestizos
The importance of education wasn't inculcated
And this is the plight of those previously Spanish colonized nations until now
who refuse to learn English
And this is going to be our plight again if we listen to those proponents
of mother tongue education to be first and foremost in education

The Americans brought education with them to the Philippines
God bless America
With the English language, we leaprogged over other countries in Asia
and the previously Spanish colonized countries in the world after WWII
And with Rizal as our national hero - a doctor, a writer, a poet, a lover, etc,
we grew up emulating Rizal . . .
saving us from the clutches of Spanish encouraged ignorance
Education is so important in the Philippines
I'd say to a fault . . .

The Hispanics aren't looking to assimilate in the US
And they can only blame themselves
for being at the bottom of the educational level
They'd rather say "No Ingles!" than to assimilate

A recent story in New York:
Small businessman charged and fined for posting advertising signs on light posts
and having parties in his billiard hall
He said he never had parties and there's no room for parties at his billiard hall;
and he never posted signs
But signs in Spanish still proliferate the posts of the streets
about a party on certain days at his billiard place
Unfortunately, he's not Hispanic; he doesn't read, write or speak Spanish
But he can read the violation tickets in English that has been costing him
lots of moolah
that could close his business
The authorities don't believe him and keep on fining him
and even telling him to take down the signs
He's still fighting it . . .

The politically correct pushed for signs to have translations from English to Spanish
What's out of whack: *The Hispanics don't have to translate what they post to English*
If they could, no need for any translation
But they won't, when everything's working just mighty fine on their side
Ignorance is bliss
Because of their cockeyed view of the greater good:

*The politically correct can be so stupidly wrong! *

Lord of Makati ? Part 2

Three barangays away, nearly a hundred mango trees line the mountainous expanse of greens and dirt roads. “Kabibili lang niya ng manggahang iyan (He has just bought that mango farm),” said a farmer-resident of Barangay Maligaya. By “he” the farmer meant, “si Binay, iyong mayor ng Makati (Binay, the mayor of Makati).”

Barangay Maligaya is just one of three barangays that Binay’s farm traverses. The other two are Mayuro and Bayawang.  The Newsbreak team saw that within the same property is a sprawling farm known in the area as Binay’s property. The undeclared property is in the fourth district of Batangas. Although Binay traces his father’s roots to Bauan town, and inherited from his uncle a feed mill in the farther town of San Pascual, he acquired the Rosario land only in 1991. He bought the first 16.6 hectares from a certain Donato Almeda, a brother of the Makati assistant city treasurer who resigned his job two years before the sale.

Through Renato Comla, one of his security aides who hailed from Rosario, Binay learned about the parcels of land which were up for sale around his property, according to a relative of Comla himself.

Binay expanded the land over the years by buying out neighboring farms. Former employees in the farm and residents of the barangays also told Newsbreak that among those who sold their properties to Binay for about P35 per square meter were the Patulays, the Goyenas, the De Toresses, the Quezons, and the Aldays. Except for the Patulays, none of these families are natives of Batangas.

Comla’s relative recalled that it was Comla himself who recruited farmers, including some of his other relatives from the surrounding barangays, to work in Binay’s farm.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, Binay’s former farm hands complained that each time Binay bought the parcels of land, these would be put under their names and they would be made to sign documents to that effect. Binay got all the documents, however, they said, depriving them of the right to pursue their claims. The agrarian reform law bars a landowner from owning five hectares of agricultural land. Beyond that, he or she must distribute the land to his workers.

By 1993, Binay had already acquired 38 hectares of land in the area. It was also then that he started his own hog raising business with 60 pigs.

The following year, Binay decided to build honest-to-goodness structures in the farm, which required him to secure a building permit from the municipal government. At the time, the “owners” of his properties—farmworke rs, actually—were no longer employed in his farm and therefore refused to sign any documents that facilitate the release of the permit.

“Pineke nila ang pirma namin. Tuwing kailangan, ‘yon ang ginawa nila,” said one of those formerly assigned to the piggery. “May kakutsaba sila sa munisipyo.” (Binay’s aides just forged our signatures. Every time these were needed, they would just forge them. Somebody in the municipal hall connives with them.)

A Manila-based source, one of those who sold his property to Binay, in fact, warned that the moment inquiries about the property are made in the assessor’s office in Rosario, Binay is immediately tipped off.

The vacation house inside the farm, which according to a farm insider, is “being patterned after the Palace in the Sky” project of former First Lady Imelda Marcos, rose simultaneously with spacious pens to house about 10,000 hogs, an expansive orchidarium, and hundreds of teepees for fighting cocks.

The property, based on farmers’ estimates, now spans 66 hectares and, at P35 per square meter when the first parcel was bought, should be worth at least P23.1 million.

Comla resigned as caretaker of the farm a few years ago due to his frequent conflicts with Elenita Binay’s aides. “There was a time when Doctora visited the farm more often than the mayor did because she had to check on her flowers. And her aides were commandeering people around, something which did not sit well with Ato,” a friend of Comla recalled.

Former farm workers recalled that in 1999, suspected communist guerrillas raided the farm because Binay reportedly maintained an armory there. They seized 10 different types of guns, according to farm employees at the time. Comla’s brother, his friend said, happened to be a member of the New People’s Army in the province.

The farm is now heavily guarded, a farmer in nearby barangay said, with security guards coming all the way from Makati and General Santos City. Farm workers from surrounding barangays have been replaced by aetas from Mt. Pinatubo in Zambales and Tarlac who stay in quarters inside the farm. “Batanguenos complain a lot,” a former farm worker said, recalling the reason they were dismissed from their jobs.

HE said they were made to work from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day, and were made to choose between two salary arrangements— P150 a day without free food, or P3,000 a month with free food.

To further secure the farm, Binay’s chief chief security, Lito Glean, frequently visits the place and has been befriending local leaders in the area. The chairman of Barangay Maligaya, Danilo Recto, is now Glean’s kumpare after he stood as sponsor in the wedding of Recto’s daughter.

At present only one Batangueno, Pepito Carrido, remains employed in the farm.

Carrido, who started out as bookkeeper in the farm seven years ago, is, by all indications, now a trusted man of Binay, in charge of releasing the salary of farm workers. Even if Carrido was present when we visited his house one Sunday evening, his wife, who had orchids as fine as Mrs. Binay’s in her mini patio, said her husband was out, that she did not know the number of his cellular phone, and that they never talked about his work in the farm.

Carrido lives in a middle-class subdivision in Barangay San Roque. A stone’s throw away from the gate of his village is the Jobin B. Mango Station.

Without these testimonies from residents of Rosario and former workers of Binay, it would be difficult to trace the ownership of the land to the comebacking mayor.

This is the same difficulty that Newsbreak encountered when it investigated reports that Binay, through dummy corporations, also owned several business establishments in Makati. However, people privy to the transactions or who have seen the Binays in posh residences in the city have spoken with Newsbreak to confirm his ownership of these companies and residences.

The papers of incorporation were mostly unavailable at the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and, in instances that documents could be accessed, they listed non-incriminating names. Land titles remain in the names of former owners or fronts, according to people privy to Binay’s style, but the documents are all with him for safekeeping.

The Makati Properties

Wearing a house dress which indicates her domestic familiarity with the place, Mayor Elenita Binay emerged from the elevator at the lobby of the Hidalgo condominium building at the plush Rockwell Center. The security guard acknowledged her with a respectful nod, which she returned with a casual inquiry, “May units pa bang for sale dito?”

A real estate broker, who had just shared the elevator ride with the doctora, was impressed that she seemed to be on a condo-buying spree. For that was the impression created by the Saturday afternoon visit some six months ago. The mayor at the time had just visited two of her daughters occupying two units on the 19th floor.

These days, the family reportedly already owns four units in the P100,000-per- square meter structure. However, Rockwell employees could confirm ownership of only two of these. Company officers declined to talk about the matter.

Only one of the daughters, the Ateneo law student, stays in the place now. The other was asked by her parents to go back to their old house on Caong Street in Barangay San Antonio.

The Binay couple still live in the same house and in the same tough neighbourhood where the father grew up. Orphaned at an early age, Binay was raised by his uncle who exposed him to simple living.

But said a former trusted aide of Binay, “He keeps cash by the millions in that house.” And that is not his only house.

Residents of Bel Air Village 2 attested that the “yellow house” at number 212 Orbit Street belongs to Binay. “It’s some kind of a safehouse, a place for meetings,” said a resident. “There are days when the place is quiet, and these are days when so many cars are parked outside the house.”

Over in the less affluent Barangay West Rembo, a huge house, known to residents as being occupied by Binay’s newlywed daughter, has also been built. Just last February 24, squatter families were alarmed at the sight of engineers surveying the area for a possible widening of the road that leads to what they will call the “mansiyon.” Paving the roads means a possible demolition of their shanties.

However, except for the fact that these houses are either occupied or frequented by members of the Binay family, there are no documents to show that they indeed own them.

How could he have done it?

Nongovernment organizations campaigning against Binay asked realtors to explain the most likely scheme that Binay, a former human right lawyer, must have used to hide his ownership of these houses.

The realtors explained it this way: He forms a company, which buys or builds the house for him. He then lists down unknown names from different addresses as incorporators of the company. After buying the property, registration papers do not bear his name. Instead, the original owner is asked to either issue a mortgage in Binay’s favor or sign a paper bestowing him with a power of attorney over the property. Only Binay has copies of the pertinent documents, such as deeds of sale and land titles.

A former aide of Binay who worked with him for three years under the Aquino government claimed that the former mayor used this scheme to acquire more than 10 houses and lots in Dasmarinas Village, all of them being rented out.

“There are these people from Bulacan whose names he’s been using [to acquire some properties],” the source, now retired from government, said. “In fact, he and Doctora are special guests of those people during fiestas.”

Homeowners, however, could not confirm whether Binay indeed has properties in the neighbourhood. SEC records of holding companies involved in recent purchases of properties in the village did not point to Binay or any of his close associates.

A contractor said the “usual SOP” is that in exchange for a building permit, contractors give a representative of the office of the mayor one condominium unit. This is aside from the requirement for most contractors, until 1998, to hire the services of excavation contractor NJ Bautista Enterprises, which, according to three contractors interviewed by Newsbreak, is owned by the couple Noel and Celine Bautista. Both are said to be close to the Binays.

Another contractor, who built at least two buildings recently, said his company had to give an undisclosed amount of money to an unidentified City Hall official before it got “accredited” to do work in Makati during Binay’s last term.

He said the condominium payoffs, although made several years ago, remains “a very sensitive issue” which he could not discuss in detail.

Despite persistent talk, however, nobody has come out to openly accuse Binay of pocketing commissions from these deals. The comebacking mayor has repeatedly denied this, claiming that his first mission was precisely to clean up the permits unit at City Hall.

Pointing out that “everybody’s hassling everybody” in City Hall anyway, a third contractor contacted by Newsbreak said, without elaborating, that his company has opted to just comply with Binay’s extra-legal requirements so it could continue building in Makati. By doing so, he said, “we have not encountered problems so far.”

Business Ventures

Just beside the barangay hall of Comembo, residents of Makati’s poorer communities have their own Glorietta to troop to.

Called Apex, the five-story commercial complex on the corner of J.P. Rizal Extension and Sampaguita Street sits where a city government-owned sports complex used to stand. It houses on its first floor a Chowking restaurant, a Mercury drugstore, and a few RTW stalls. A bookstore occupies part of the second floor, while two cinemas share the third floor with a computer school, which also occupies the rest of the building.

What makes the mini-mall popular among residents is that they know it belongs to former Mayor Binay. The name of the company, JOBIM, is a dead giveaway. City Hall insiders said it stands for Jojo Binay, Irasga (the last name of Nelson, his former chief city engineer and trusted aide with whom he had a falling out in 1998), and Mercado (the last name of former councilor Ernesto, who is widely recognized in Makati as Binay’s alleged bagman).

The Chowking branch on the first floor of Apex which opened in 1996 is registered under the name BIMECH Food Chains Corporation, which, reliable sources said, again stands for Binay, Irasga, Mercado, and , possibly, one Lilia Chavez, whom SEC papers showed is a resident of Barangay Guadalupe in Makati. Chavez owns the most number of shares in the corporation, which, in 1998, reported a total net income of only P181,644, which dropped to P59,390 in 1999.

However, as in the case of his alleged houses, documents on the ownership of these and other business establishments do not bear the name of Binay or any of his close political allies. In some cases, there are no papers of incorporation at the SEC at all. And as in the case of the houses, only employees and people privy to Binay’s business deals will attest to his ownership of the companies.

For instance, two McDonald’s outlets along J.P. Rizal—one at the corner of Reposo Street, very near the City Hall, and another at the corner of Pasong Tamo, near the Sta. Ana Race Track—are widely known in Makati as Binay’s. A check on the papers, however, revealed that the franchise of the said outlets remains with McGeorge Foods Corporation, the mother company of McDonalds in the Philippines.

A source knowledgeable about the deal said Binay earns from McDonald’s because he owns the lots on which the said outlets stand and also leases them to McGeorge. The Makati assessor’s office refused to reveal the identities of the owner of the said properties.

The Dreyers ice cream booth in Glorietta at the Ayala Center, the franchise for which is pegged at P1 million, is also widely known to be Binay’s The company’s name, BIMET Manufacturing Corporation, is quite similar to the JOBIM acronym of a mall that Binay reportedly co-owns with Mercado. The SEC, however, has no records on the company.

No registration papers could be dug up either at the SEC for two more widely known businesses of Binay: the two-story Areflor Funeral Homes on J.P. Rizal Extension, and the Christine’s water purifying plant in Barangay Pembo, to provide space and an access road for which a Montessori school and a number of shanties were torn down.

The Binay couple reported in their SALs from 1996 up to 1999 that they had investments in business which grew at an average of P2 million annually. No details on the nature of these investments were given.

Election issue

Corruption is an issue that has been raised against Binay in every election since 1988, including the one held three years ago, when he fielded his wife while he was waiting for his term to pass.

Each time the charges—bloated payrolls, overpriced equipment and supplies, grease money demanded from businessmen, and hefty commissions from projects and purchases—would prove immaterial to voters, as Binay would always win hands down.

To the poor, who compose almost half of Makati’s 505,203 population, Binay is the champion who has delivered to them the goods and services by pounding on the rich to pay their taxes.

The local opposition recognizes that it would be a “difficult climb” trying to downplay what Binay has given the poor, patronage politics being a concept that voters do not seem to regard as negative.

Free education in a university that would shame private institutions in terms of structures and equipment, access to free medical care in the expensive Makati Medical Center, burial assistance for families who have lost loved ones, basketball courts and paved roads—as long as they benefit from these, residents of depressed barangays are unlikely to question whether these are their rights and not acts of goodwill from Binay.

“We cannot deny the fact that Binay has been delivering to Makati’s poor more than what they ever had before,” said Councilor Mark Joseph, one of the only two oppositionists in the local legislative body. “What our constituents should be made aware of is what he is not delivering. Where people need medicine, they are given roads. Where people training for livelihood, they are given cement.”

The Lord of Makati ? Part I

 
Written by Miriam Grace A. Go
Wednesday, 28 March 2001

Can Binay explain his wealth?

In less than a decade, Jejomar “Jojo” Binay, former chair of the Metro Manila Development Authority (MMDA) and former mayor of Makati, accumulated at least P80 million worth of real estate properties in Makati and Batangas, which he kept undeclared, our investigation shows. The amount excludes P12 million in declared investments, as well as other businesses that he and his friends reportedly control through dummy corporations.

After serving as mayor for 12 years, Binay now owns a 66-hectare farm in Rosario, Batangas—estimated to be almost double the size of the Ayala commercial center in Makati—according to our investigation. Based on conservative estimates of the land value alone, the property—excluding improvements— is worth about P23 million.

In addition, Binay and his wife, Elenita, current Makati mayor, also own at least two Hidalgo condominium units, located inside the posh Rockwell Center in Makati. A 208-squae meter unit in Rockwell, like the ones occupied by each of the two Binay daughters, costs around P28 million.The three properties alone, worth at least P79 million, were never declared in the couple’s statement of assets and liabilities.

This is in violation of RA 6713, which mandates all officials to file every year the acquisition cost and the assessed and fair market values of their real property. They are also required by law to list other personal property, investments, cash on hand or in banks, financial liabilities, and their business interests and connections.

Violation of the law carries certain penalties—a P5,000-fine and disqualification from public office. Unfortunately, officials take the law lightly as none of them have been put behind bars for their transgressions. Former President Joseph Estrada himself was previously caught committing the same mistake.

We interviewed at least 15 contractors, former employees and farm hands, sources privy to transactions, and local residents who saw Binay inspect the properties, and who all confirmed his ownership of these properties. Without these testimonies it would be difficult to trace ownership to him because documents, if they are available at all, do not link him or his family members to the properties.

Appointed MMDA chair in 1998 and replaced early this year after the Edsa 2 uprising, Jojo Binay wants to go back to City Hall. Perhaps the most popular politician among Makati City’s poor who constitute the majority of the city’s voters, he is the neutral target of political opponents.

Makati’s coffee shops are bursting with stories about Binay’s alleged unexplained wealth which he supposedly acquired during his consecutive three terms as mayor from 1988 to 1998 (he served as OIC mayor in 1986 until the 1988 local elections). And he has a lot of explaining to do, considering that as mayor, Binay received a monthly P32,000 salary and as MMDA chairman, he received P46,000. Elenita received the same salary as mayor.

“These charges are a rehash of old election issues,” says Binay in a written response to questions, brushing aside the allegations of misdeed.In a city where there is an accumulation of tremendous wealth, it is said that Binay himself had amassed riches by tolerating the collusion between the city’s building contractors and permits officials. It is common knowledge in Makati that permits that City Hall gives to builders of condominiums sometimes come with a hefty, under-the-table price.

The local opposition says they have the goods on the former mayor. In fact, it spent a hefty sum on recent paid ads in the Inquirer that alluded to Binay’s posh residences in and out of Makati City.But the tough-talking, sometimes brusque Jojo Binay is unfazed. He says he does “not feel alluded” in the ads anyway.

Landed Family. 
Two hours away from Makati City, in the agricultural town of Rosario in Batangas, a sprawling, modern, 66-hectrae farm is owned by the Binays of Makati. A conservative estimate of the land’s worth is put at P23 million, excluding the improvements made in recent years such as the construction of two huge houses, a piggery, orchidarium, a cock farm; and the paving of a hilly road that would connect the farm to other areas in the town.

The Binays acquired the first chunk of the land—16.6 hectares—in 1991. Former farm hands recalled having started working there in 1993, disclosing that they saw the former mayor there almost every week at the time.
But the couple never declared this in their Statement of Assets and Liabilities (SAL) of 1996, 1997 and 1999, which Newsbreak obtained. The Office of the Ombudsman did not have a copy of his 1998 SAL. The Binay couple is scheduled to file their new SAL next month, as mandated by law.

As of December 1999, the couple declared a net worth of only P20.06 million. In the same period, they declared P12.24 million in business investments- without identifying which these are. In fact, the Binays said their real properties are worth only P3,183,445 as of December 1999.

The only real estate property that the Binays declared as acquisitions since Jojo Binay became mayor in 1998 was a residential property in Alfonso, Cavite. Acquired in 1994, its fair market value as of 1999 was pegged at P59,580. The couple, however, declared in their 1999 SAL that they spent P3 million in improving the Cavite residence.

The other real assets declared by the couple in their most recent SAL were either inherited, purchased or mortgaged to them before they dabbled in public service. Two of these properties were inherited—one in 1951, in Cabagan, Isabela; and the other, with an unspecified date, in San Pascual, Batangas. Three were purchased—Alabang Hills, Muntinlupa (1964); Mariveles in Bataan (1965); and San Antonio Village in Makati (1977).

Of the eight declared properties, three are classified as agricultural while five are residential. The residential properties include the ones in Cavite; Makati; Muntinlupa; San Pedro (acquired in 1964) and Calamba (1984), Laguna. The Bataan, Isabela, and Batangas properties are agricultural.Their 1999 SAL does not say when the San Pascual, Batangas property was inherited.San Pascual is in the second district of Batangas, very near Batuan, where Binay’s father was born (Binay’s mother comes from Isabela, which should explain his Isabela property.

Rosario, Batangas
Along the main road of Barangay San Roque in the Rosario town proer, a huge blue-and-white sign sits in front of heaps of huge fruit baskets. It says: “Jobin B. Mango Station.”

A caretaker of the Jobin B. Mango Station, an old man, refused to answer queries about his benefactor. The most he could say was that “taga-Maynila ang kapitalista (the capitalist is from Metro Manila).” At harvest time in June, he said, they bring the mangoes to business establishments in Binondo. This is the first time workers will harvest from the capitalist’s mango farm, whose location the caretaker gestures to be far-flung—he acquired in only recently.