by: Edu Punay,  The Philippine Star 06/14/12

MANILA, Philippines - The Supreme Court (SC) upheld yesterday the legality of the government’s P1.8-billion purchase of precinct count optical scan (PCOS) machines for next year’s automated midterm elections.

Voting 11-3 in a special session, justices of the high court dismissed the consolidated petitions of various groups seeking to stop the Commission on Elections (Comelec) from purchasing 82,000 machines used under a lease agreement in the 2010 polls from the Netherlands-based Smartmatic

by:  Evangeline de Vera, Malaya 06/13/12

The Court of Appeals has granted a petition of the Anti-Money Laundering Council to extend for another six months the 20-day freeze order that the court previously issued against the bank accounts of three Chinese nationals who were charged with illegal drugs possession and sale.

In a four-page resolution penned by Associate Justice Rodil Zalameda, the CA’s Third Division likewise dismissed the motion filed by respondents Changxin Wang, Mark Sy Tan and Mattew Lee Tan seeking the lifting of the freeze order dated May 15, 2012.

The three Chinese nationals, who are still undergoing preliminary investigation at the Department of Justice for drug charges, said the AMLC had been given sufficient time from February up to the filing of the petition for the issuance of freeze order in May 2012 to determine what is needed to be known relative to their alleged money laundering activities.

by: Leila B. Salaverria PDI 05/11/12

MANILA, Philippines- The government is not content with the $50 million that businessman Herminio Disini has been ordered to repay the government for his role in defrauding the country of billions of pesos through the corrupt-ridden Bataan Nuclear Power Plant (BNPP) deal.

It also wants the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos, who it said had acted in conspiracy with Disini, to similarly be made to make restitution for the anomalous contracts and concessions he gave to his associates in the scuttled project.

The Office of the Solicitor General (OSG) has filed a motion for partial reconsideration with the Sandiganbayan 1st Division for the antigraft court to also order Marcos to return the ill-gotten commissions that he in conspiracy with Disini had allegedly obtained through the anomalous contract.