DoF

Revamping

By Julito Rada

THE amended implementing rules and regulations of the Corporate Recovery and Tax Incentives for Enterprises Act (CREATE) Law, which will hopefully address some of its inconsistencies, are expected to be announced this week, the Department of Finance said Tuesday.

“We are in the process of amending the IRR so that it would be consist-

‘BRP...

sovereign rights and jurisdiction over Ayungin Shoal,” NSC Assistant Director General Jonathan Malaya said in a statement.

Manila made the assertion after Beijing insisted that it has sovereignty over Ayungin Shoal, where China Coast Guard vessels fired water cannons at boats resupplying the Filipino Marines on the BRP Sierra Madre.

Claiming the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) disregarded its warning and intruded into the waters it is “illegally claiming,” China said the Philippines must tow away its vessel there as it supposedly promised in 1999.

“Ren’ai Jiao has always been part of China’s Nansha Qundao. The historical context of the issue of Ren’ai Jiao is very clear. In 1999, the Philippines sent a military vessel and deliberately ran it aground at Ren’ai Jiao, attempting to change the status quo of Ren’ai Jiao illegally,” China’s Foreign Ministry said.

China also accused the Philippines of repeatedly taking unilateral actions to undermine the existing management status quo on the Second Thomas Shoal, the international name of Ayungin Shoal in the South China Sea.

But the DFA said the deployment of a Philippine military station in its own concurred. Civil Case 0014 was one of the forfeiture cases filed in 1987, during the administration of then-President Corazon Cojuangco Aquino involving assets and properties owned by the former President and First Lady.

The impleaded corporations include Philippine Village Hotel, Puerto Azul Beach and Country Club, Ternate Development Corporation, Fantasia Filipina Resorts, Inc. Ocean Villas Condominium Corporation, and Silahis International Hotel, which belongs to the Sulo group owned by the Enriquez family.

In 2009, the Presidential Commission on Good Government estimated the subject properties in Civil Case No.

0014 at P581 million.

With the death of the former President, he was substituted in the case by heirs, including President Ferdinand Marcos, Jr., Sen. Imee Marcos, and Irene Marcos-Araneta.

In junking the appeal, the antigraft court said that the testimony of the records custodian of the Presidental Commission on Good Government, Maria Lourdes Magno, “fell within the category of hearsay evidence.”

“With the foregoing considerations, it follows that the best evidence rule applies in this case and, therefore, plaintiff’s (PCGG’s) sole witness Magno is not competent to testify as to the contents and existence of the said documentary evidence,” the court said.