Mindoro Rep. Reynaldo Umali earlier claimed before the Senate impeachment court that an anonymous lady handed over to him Corona's PSBank records, which showed the chief magistrate having $700,000 in deposits.

The prosecution attached the documents in a request before the impeachment court to subpoena Corona’s bank records.

Senate President and presiding judge Juan Ponce Enrile asked Tiongson whether the documents were forged, to which she answered yes.

Tiongson also told Enrile that PSBank records are generated by the bank’s computers and have bar codes printed on the pages.

Umali told the impeachment court that a “small lady” gave him an envelope with the banks records outside the Senate building last week.

But a report by the Senate sergeant-at-arms noted that closed circuit television recordings showed no "small lady," Senate Majority Floor Leader Vicente Sotto III on Monday said.

"It does not contain any little ladies giving anything to Representative Umali, from the time he arrived at one o’clock up to the time that he boarded his vehicle," according to the majority floor leader.

You gotta love these senate hearings.

Language, learning, identity, privilege

 By JAMES SORIANO

August 24, 2011, 4:06am

Ithink

The Manila Bulletin

MANILA, Philippines — English is the language of learning. I’ve known this since before I could go to school. As a toddler, my first study materials were a set of flash cards that my mother used to teach me the English alphabet.

My mother made home conducive to learning English: all my storybooks and coloring books were in English, and so were the cartoons I watched and the music I listened to. She required me to speak English at home. She even hired tutors to help me learn to read and write in English.

In school I learned to think in English. We used English to learn about numbers, equations and variables. With it we learned about observation and inference, the moon and the stars, monsoons and photosynthesis. With it we learned about shapes and colors, about meter and rhythm. I learned about God in English, and I prayed to Him in English.

Filipino, on the other hand, was always the ‘other’ subject — almost a special subject like PE or Home Economics, except that it was graded the same way as Science, Math, Religion, and English. My classmates and I used to complain about Filipino all the time. Filipino was a chore, like washing the dishes; it was not the language of learning. It was the language we used to speak to the people who washed our dishes.

We used to think learning Filipino was important because it was practical: Filipino was the language of the world outside the classroom. It was the language of the streets: it was how you spoke to the tindera when you went to the tindahan, what you used to tell your katulong that you had an utos, and how you texted manong when you needed “sundo na.”

These skills were required to survive in the outside world, because we are forced to relate with the tinderas and the manongs and the katulongs of this world. If we wanted to communicate to these people — or otherwise avoid being mugged on the jeepney — we needed to learn Filipino.

That being said though, I was proud of my proficiency with the language. Filipino was the language I used to speak with my cousins and uncles and grandparents in the province, so I never had much trouble reciting.

It was the reading and writing that was tedious and difficult. I spoke Filipino, but only when I was in a different world like the streets or the province; it did not come naturally to me. English was more natural; I read, wrote and thought in English. And so, in much of the same way that I learned German later on, I learned Filipino in terms of English. In this way I survived Filipino in high school, albeit with too many sentences that had the preposition ‘ay.’

It was really only in university that I began to grasp Filipino in terms of language and not just dialect. Filipino was not merely a peculiar variety of language, derived and continuously borrowing from the English and Spanish alphabets; it was its own system, with its own grammar, semantics, sounds, even symbols.

But more significantly, it was its own way of reading, writing, and thinking. There are ideas and concepts unique to Filipino that can never be translated into another. Try translating bayanihan, tagay, kilig or diskarte.

Only recently have I begun to grasp Filipino as the language of identity: the language of emotion, experience, and even of learning. And with this comes the realization that I do, in fact, smell worse than a malansang isda. My own language is foreign to me: I speak, think, read and write primarily in English. To borrow the terminology of Fr. Bulatao, I am a split-level Filipino.

But perhaps this is not so bad in a society of rotten beef and stinking fish. For while Filipino may be the language of identity, it is the language of the streets. It might have the capacity to be the language of learning, but it is not the language of the learned.

It is neither the language of the classroom and the laboratory, nor the language of the boardroom, the court room, or the operating room. It is not the language of privilege. I may be disconnected from my being Filipino, but with a tongue of privilege I will always have my connections.

So I have my education to thank for making English my mother language.

I’m done running. I’m exhausted. I don’t want that life anymore.

So I’ve decided to come forward, own up to what I’ve done, and tell my story to the best of my recollection. I’ve reached out to former bosses­ and employers and apologized for misleading them — a mix of humiliation and liberation coming with each disclosure. All the people mentioned in this article gave me permission to use their names. I’ve also talked to family and friends about my situation and am working with legal counsel to review my options. I don’t know what the consequences will be of telling my story.

Reading this article rubs me the wrong way. Here's why.

Last week, I went to the US Embassy for a visa interview in order for me to travel to the US. My work requires me to visit my company's US headquarters for a series of business meetings. Also last week, Manila was battered silly by a typhoon. So, while waiting for the gates to open and for the guards to let us in, all of us hopefuls were waiting in line beneath the rain and the strong gusts of wind. There was a separate line for ladies who are supposed to be fiancees of Americans. There was another line, shorter, for those students (I think) who wish to study in the US. And then my line - tourists and non-immigrants who will want to go to the US for business. You gotta love the sailors. They have their own line and it was as long as all the other lines combined. Maybe longer. It was a Friday and at that morning, there were probably around 200 people waiting to get inside the embassy. For the entire day, it can easily reach as much as 400 to 500 people. Multiply that by 4.5 (since on Wednesdays, they only operate half day, I was told) and you get the picture. Day-in day-out you can imagine how many Filipinos try their luck in getting a US visa. By following the rules.

And here comes Mr Vargas and his very public confession.

Mr Vargas' is a sad case albeit inspiring. He grew up in the US so when he says that in his heart he is an American, I believe it. But the law is the law. If you break it, you suffer the consequences. In this case, he will very likely be deported. Smart man that he is, I'm pretty sure he knows the odds.

I think his public confession is a leap of faith. Maybe it will help drive some votes on the Dream Act that's pending in the US Congress. The act, if it becomes law, will legalize undocumented immigrants like Mr Vargas.

However, back here in the PH, those people that braved the typhoons in order to get a shot of the "American Dream". Those that paid exorbitant fees to travel agents/fixers in order to make the process faster. Those that made the effort of getting the necessary papers, made deposits as show-money, grandsons and granddaughters who took time off to accompany their grandmas and grandpas who wish to see their children in the US. How are these people going to feel about the fact that Mr Vargas' mom and grandparents took the "baluktot na daan" to get to the US?

Very recently, news organizations have bannered Catholic Church holdings in at least two big corporations —Philex Mining Corporation and the Bank of the Philippine Islands.

Chamber of Mines head Jerry Brimo said that as of March 31, Catholic entities owned a substantial number of shares in Philex. The Archbishop of Manila owned 3,221,135 shares; the Religious of the Virgin Mary-B with a total of 4,216,804 shares; and the Archbishop in Zamboanga owned 1,116,147 shares.

According to the Philippine Stock Exchange, as of 27 May 2011, each Philex share is valued at P20.45. This means that the Catholic Church’s holdings in the company are valued at P65,872,210.75; P86,233,641.80; and P22,825,206.15 respectively, or a total of P174,931,058.70.

In BPI’s list of its top 100 stockholders as of 31 March 2011, at least eleven were obviously Catholic entities. The worth of these stocks amounts to many billions of pesos (computed at P57.05 per share according to the 27 May PSE Market Information). These were (according to ranking and number of stocks owned):

• 4 Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila with 222,843,681 shares worth P12,713,232,001;

• 8 Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila (Real Casa de Misericordia) with 41,408,841 shares worth P2,362,374,379;

• 13 Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila (Hospital de San Juan de Dios) with 22,072,182 shares worth P1,259,217,983;

• 15 Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila (Hospicio de San Jose) with 6,016,624 shares worth P343,248,399;

• 17 Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila (Hosp de San Juan de Dios) with 4,285,572 shares worth P244,491,882;

• 21 Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila (Mayordomia dela Catedral) with 2,664,266 shares worth P151,996,375;

• 26 Roman Catholic Archbishop of Manila (St. Paul’s Hospital) with 1,772,418 shares worth P101,116,447;

• 49 Carmel of the Divine Infant Jesus of Prague, Inc (Filipino) with 726,819 shares worth P41,465,024;

• 60 Superior dela Corporacion Filipina de Padres Agustinos Recoletos, Inc. with 551,382 shares worth P31,456,343;

• 64 Roman Catholic Archbishop of Jaro with 491,385 shares worth P28,033,514; and

• 74 Corporacion de Padres Dominicos with 380,307 shares worth P21,696,514.

The staggering amount of RCC money in BPI alone totals P17.3 billion pesos. Add its Philex holdings and the total is 17.5 BILLION PESOS. This huge amount in only two corporations! It will not be surprising if the Catholic Church has a lot more money in other big corporations.

With this alone, the Roman Catholic Church already becomes the 9th richest in the country dislodging Emilio Yap, Manila Hotel and Manila Bulletin owner and Oscar Lopez of Benpres Holdings Corporation.

Hypocrisy. This is why I don't anymore go to church and listen to mass.

Right around the time this is posted on my blog, I would be inside a Carmelite chapel with my wife and two children. My daughter is turning three years old and it is customary for Philippine Catholics to go to church on their birthdays. I like to think that, despite my disgust towards religion, I am having my children practice Catholicism because it gives them some semblance of what faith is.

When they grow up, I hope they make wise decisions on where they want to put their faith on.