Hole of Justice: Hong Kong a British Colony

Hole of Justice: Hong Kong a British Colony: Hole of Justice By Peter G. Jimenea How Hong Kong Became a British Colony (3 rd of a Series) During the 1800s, European powers f...

Hong Kong a British Colony

Hole of Justice

By Peter G. Jimenea

How Hong Kong Became a British Colony (3^rd of a Series)

During the 1800s, European powers funded their colonial ambitions through narcotics. Britain led the drive. The British are the most organized drug traffickers in history. They Import opium from India and targeted China’s millions of people as principal market.

Prior to the British campaign, China has a small number of opium smokers, leftovers of the Dutch efforts. The British became the first Western government to traffic in narcotics due to big profits as shown in their 20% of the India’s opium revenues.

Despite the Emperor’s objection, Indian opium shipments increased, so did the number of addicts. The Chinese banned opium but British captains of the Soldier-Merchant-Executives of London ignored the ban. They sailed into different Chinese ports to unload the stuff.

From 200 tons in 1800s, the opium shipments increased to 2,000 tons in 1840. The Chinese resented the British colonial aspirations. Though the Ch’ing Dynasty was politically weak they seized and destroyed $6 million of opium and arrested some British traders.

Those arrested were exiled in the freezing Central Asia and one was even crucified and shown publicly at Canton docks as a warning to British traders. The British exploded when Cantonese officials dumped thousands of kilos of opium into the sea during the Far Eastern Boston Tea Party.

The British responded by shelling the coastline and a full-scale wars between Britain and China erupted in 1839 to 1856. But Chinese junks and rusted canons have no match against the powerful fleets of the enemies. The dubbed “Opium Wars” resulted to a full British victory.

China became powerless to stop the opium trade and worse, it was also obliged to pay the British a costly war-reparation. Unable to pay the cost, they ceded Hong Kong to British control. This is how Kong Kong became a British colony. Soon addiction spread from China to Southeast Asia, Europe and the United States.

Britain made opium the world’s largest cash commodity. When the demand overtook supply, the Chinese government, which by then badly need of funds, finally tolerates domestic opium cultivation in two provinces. By 1900, it turned a blind eye to a yearly production of 20,000 tons.

During the late 1800s, a new breed of colonizers from Europe divided Asia into colonies, protectorates and spheres of influence. Laos and Cambodia became French-Indochina. Burma and Thailand became a British boundary separating it from the French territory.

The 1911 people revolution led by Mao Tse-tung ended the imperial government and a new republic was formed. But it only worsened the problem. Without a strong Central government to provide, powerful military warlords controlled the cultivation and exports of opium.

But not until a New People’s Republic of China was formed that put everything in place. Hong Kong residents feel living on a borrowed time. The perceived the fantasies of Lifestyle of the Rich and Famous will soon be over. Only few have the faintest idea of this upcoming event.

The Joint Declaration signed between the People’s Republic of China and Great Britain states that Hong Kong shall be returned to China by 1997.  On July 1997, Hong Kong was returned to Mainland China as agreed and its residents became restive.

Mostly affected are drug lords and drug syndicates thriving in Hong Kong. They knew the Mainland Chinese have a simple solution to drug problem – a bullet in the head done in public. Thus, drug lords were forced to migrate to the East and the West to play safe.

Others picked the Philippines as country of choice after knowing the corruptibility of our public officials. They knew drug money can buy judges, prosecutors, police and military officers, government workers politicians and even barangay leaders. The problem is they also bring their wares with them!

Next issue: Illegal Drugs as backbone of the Triads

Hole of Justice: The Chinese Triads (Part 2 of a Series)

Hole of Justice: The Chinese Triads (Part 2 of a Series): Hole of Justice By Peter G. Jimenea History of the Triads (Part 2 of a series} The Chinese Triad is a secret society with over 40...

The Chinese Triads (Part 2 of a Series)

Hole of Justice

By Peter G. Jimenea

History of the Triads (Part 2 of a series}

The Chinese Triad is a secret society with over 400 years of history behind it. Triad has a noble purpose when organized. They resented the occupation of the Northern part of China by the invading barbarian Manchus of Mongolia.

Triad societies are represented by an equilateral triangle signifying three basic concepts of Heaven, Earth and Man. They were founded as patriotic secret organization to overthrow the foreign conquerors and restore the Ming dynasty to the imperial throne.

About 1,500 years before Christ, these societies were founded in 17^th century thirty years after the Manchus, (barbarian tribesmen from Mongolia) invaded China, swept over “the Great Wall” and placed the Northern part of the country in their domination.

The Manchus has an iron grip in two/thirds of Northern China but continued to face rebellion in the South. The rallying point for the anti-Manchus sentiment in the South is the Foochow monastery of the 128 militant monks who organized the local population into pocket of resistance.

By 1674, the Manchus consolidated their hold on Northern China and send large contingents of armed troops to the south. But the monks who had developed the form of self-defense called kung fu, held the Manchus out for almost three weeks.

A traitor among the monks, however,  help the Manchus disguised as waterboys to enter the secret underground tunnels into the monastery. Only 18 of monks escaped the slaughter but they were hunted by the Manchus brutally killing 13 of them.

The five remaining monks were credited for the first Triad society to drive the Manchus away from their lands. The secret societies have the spread like fever across Southern China and continue to thrive with a slogan “Armies protect the Emperor, Triads protect the people.”

The Triads tried several aborted revolutions like “The Urban Uprising,” “Taiping Rebellion” and others until the many radical critics of the Manchus joined them. By mid-1800 the Triads existence were threatened that large segments of their members migrated to foreign lands.

Out there they learned to engage in illegal activities to survive. The Mainland Triads sent members abroad to organize and protect the various kinds of vices and crimes that thrived among their homeless members. By the late 1800s, the Triads’ big income was sent to China to help the revolution.

In 1911, the Manchus were overthrown and a Republic was established. Dr. Sun yat-sen formed the first government being a senior Triad member. He is assisted by Charlie Soong, financier and member of the powerful “Red Gang,” and Army General Chiang Kai-shek who lost to Mao Tse-tung in 1949.

As they spread control over China’s underworld as well as in foreign countries, Gen. Chiang gave the Triads unprecedented opportunity to gain recognition and powers in national politics. His ambition was to lead China as the military chief of the new Imperial dynasty.

A litmus test for his new leadership was Gen. Chiang’s attempt to eliminate the Communist-led labor unions in Shanghai, the largest city in Southern China. He ordered the closure of the newspapers considered critical to him and the arrest of left-wing leaders and spokespersons of labor unions.

The oppressive government of Gen. Chiang sparked the 1949 revolution led by Mao Tse-tung. Chiang fled to Formosa (now Taiwan) with his few army generals leaving behind the others like Gen. Li who opened the Golden Triangle story to the new world.

Next issue: How Hong Kong became a British Colony.

Hole of Justice: History of Illegal Drugs (First of a Series)

Hole of Justice: History of Illegal Drugs (First of a Series): Hole of Justice By Peter G. Jimenea History of Illegal Drugs (First of a Series) It is imperative for our peaceful citizens to kn...

History of Illegal Drugs (First of a Series)

Hole of Justice

By Peter G. Jimenea

History of Illegal Drugs (First of a Series)

It is imperative for our peaceful citizens to know the menace brought about by illegal drugs to society.  I started writing about illegal drugs in 1994 but nobody inquires as they knew nothing about it. Now they do, after illegal drugs become a national problem and worse, a global crisis.

This story refers to the Chinese Triads. Most of the documented information herein are based on the book Warlord of Crime by a US investigative journalist Gerard Fosner. He is the only writer allowed by the 14K Gang Triads to visit its headquarter in Hong Kong.

With the exception of the vast majority of hardworking and honest Chinese, I have no intent to slight them. As a matter of fact, they deserved my praises as the Chinese race and culture are at the forefront since the inception of written history.

This delves only on the unfortunate segment of the Chinese race- the Chinese Triads. They have a systematic and vicious control of large, illicit empires in the criminal world from the East to the West. The backbone of this organization is - illegal drugs.

The Triads are virtually unknown to the underworld business until the mid 50s. By then, Auguste Joseph Ricord, a Corsican boss of the French connection, was the king of heroin trade from Turkey to Marseilles and into New York until the mid-70s.

Heroin addiction, however, declined at the entry of the Latin-American Cocaine Cowboys in the underworld business. A research conducted by Posner revealed that at the time, Cocaine Cowboys earned enormous profit from this booming trade where “shabu” earned its street-name - poor man’s cocaine.

But not until the advent of the 80s when the Hong Kong Triads took control of the heroin trade in the US with their “China white” product coming from the Golden Triangle, the mountainous mist-shrouded areas in Southeast Asia fit for the cultivation of hush-poppy plants.

The Golden Triangle is consist of the Northern provinces of Siam (now Thailand), Eastern fringe of Laos and a broad stretch of Northeast Burma ( now Myanmar). The Chinese are also credited for conversion of Hong Kong as the third-largest financial center after New York and London.

Hong Kong has become a melting pot of world’s businesses and had the world’s most profitable bank – the Hong Kong and Shanghai Bank. The 14K Triads is the most dominant gang in Hong Kong, a British colony, before it was returned to Mainland China in July 1997. It has over 30,000 members in the colony alone.

A Hong Kong Police Superintendent said the Chinese Triads invented organized crime. And as he is said to have remarked, “They are the best at it. These secret societies have made it into big business and they are absolutely ruthless.”

This syndicate makes billions of dollars every year from regular businesses of organized crime – gambling, prostitution, extortion, loan sharking, protection rackets, guns-for-hire, up to political and civic corruption. But there is one thing that makes them unique – heroin!

Triads control most of world’s heroin supply coming from the Golden Triangle, a mountainous patch of land covering Laos, Thailand and Burma that can produce more than 70 percent of the world’s opium and heroin. This is an advantage the other criminal organizations don’t have.”

But where did these Chinese Triads originate? How did Hong Kong become a British colony and how did the Triads become warlord of crime in underworld business? How did they make the Mafia looked like a bunch of school kids in uniform when it comes to atrocities in criminal activities?

Next issue: Origin of The Triads.

Hole of Justice: The Rule of Law - on Laches

Hole of Justice: The Rule of Law - on Laches: Hole of Justice By Peter G. Jimenea RULE OF LAW – ON LACHES Laches is not concerned merely with lapse of time unlike prescription...

Hole of Justice: The Rule of Law - on Laches

Hole of Justice: The Rule of Law - on Laches: Hole of Justice By Peter G. Jimenea RULE OF LAW – ON LACHES Laches is not concerned merely with lapse of time unlike prescription...

Hole of Justice: The Rule of Law - on Laches

Hole of Justice: The Rule of Law - on Laches: Hole of Justice By Peter G. Jimenea RULE OF LAW – ON LACHES Laches is not concerned merely with lapse of time unlike prescription...

The Rule of Law - on Laches

Hole of Justice

By Peter G. Jimenea

RULE OF LAW – ON LACHES

Laches is not concerned merely with lapse of time unlike prescription. The latter deals with the facts of delay, laches deals with the effect of unreasonable delay, or failure/neglect for an unreasonable, unexplained length of time to do that by which, exercising due diligence could have been done earlier. (267 SCRA 339).

The failed P137M Housing Project of the Iloilo City government in Pavia, Iloilo, is a story that won’t go away. The construction of 413 units of low-cost houses for City Hall employees that started in 2001 has ended in 2009 without even a unit completed. Let this be a case study.

A case was file against the responsible city officials but it seems not good for the Office of the Ombudsman. It slept their as graft-investigators has failed to find a probable cause against the accused who messed-up with the taxpayers’ money. What a weak defense to save face!

Probable cause needs only to rest on evidence showing that most likely than not a crime has been committed. It demands more than suspicion and requires less than evidence to justify indictment. The unauthorized payment of P43M by the mayor to the contractor is already embraced in RA 3019.

But the decision approved and signed by Ombudsman Conchita Carpio Morales slams the Information accusing Mayor Jerry Trenas, Melchor Tan, Edwin Bravo, Catherine Tingson and Alex Trinidad for Violation of Sec. 3, Par (e) of RA 3019 as amended and ruled…it is HEREBY SET ASIDE.” Set aside only, nothing follows?

SEC. 16, ART. Iii of the 1987 Constitution reads: “All person shall have the right to a speedy disposition of their cases before all judicial or administrative bodies. Also SEC. 16, ART. IV of the 1973 Constitution likewise guarantees the right of all persons to a speedy disposition of their cases.

Finding probable cause is not the reason or justification of the Ombudsman for delay. Different weights cannot be assigned to different reasons or justifications invoked by the State, such as failure of the accused to follow up their pending cases with the office of the Ombudsman.

As respondent, it is not the duty of the accused to follow up the prosecution of the case. Conversely, it was the responsibility of the Office of the Ombudsman to expedite the same with reasonable timeliness in view of its mandate to promptly act on all complaints lodged before it.

A defendant has no duty to bring himself to trial; the State has that duty, as well as the duty of insuring that the trial is consistent with due process. A deliberate attempt to delay the trial in order to hamper or prejudice the defense should be weighted heavily against the State!

Jurisprudence dictates, “”A delay in the disposition of cases amounts to a denial of justice, brings the Court to disrepute and ultimately erodes public faith and confidence in the judiciary. (280 SCRA 637)

The SC finds the inordinate delay of more than six (6) years by the Ombudsman in resolving the criminal complaints against the petitioner to be violative of his Constitutionally guaranteed right to due process and to a speedy disposition of cases against him. (Anchangco vs. Ombudsman, 268 SCRA 301)

Lex reprobate moram – the law disapproves of delay. Thus, for the unjust delay of the Ombudsman, the Sandiganbayan approved to dismiss the graft case filed against Petitioner Rafael Coscolluela. The Ombudsman has failed in probing his case for 5 years. (G.R. No. 191411, July 15, 2013).

Delay is a two-edge sword. It is the government that must bear the burden of proving its case beyond reasonable doubt. What if the witnesses in the case have gone away without informing the litigants of the decision? Time passed makes it impossible for the government to carry its burden.

The Constitution and the Rules do not require impossibilities or extraordinary efforts, diligence or exertion from the courts or prosecutors, nor contemplate that such right shall deprive the State of the reasonable opportunity to fairly prosecute criminals.

As vanguard against corruption and bureaucracy, the Office of the Ombudsman must have a system of officials’ accountability to ensure that cases before it are resolved with reasonable dispatch to equally expose those who are responsible for its delays, as it ought to determine in this case.

Never had here been officials so derelict and irresolute in the performance of duty than the Ombudsman and Deputies. The case against (Mayor) now Cong. Jerry Trenas el al is already over 10 years and should have been dismissed by now. But why set aside only? Why not dismiss the case? Is the Office of the Ombudsman another syndicate we have to deal with? Just asking.

Hole of Justice: The Supreme Court Says

Hole of Justice: The Supreme Court Says: Hole of Justice By Peter G. Jimenea The Supreme Court on Delay “Injustice lies fairly in delayed decision than an erroneous one w...

The Supreme Court Says

Hole of Justice

By Peter G. Jimenea

The Supreme Court on Delay

“Injustice lies fairly in delayed decision than an erroneous one which can be appealed immediately. Delay causes prolonged anxiety to party litigants and could tie their assets and other properties in litigation.”

This explains why the Bill of Rights contains as it is in Art. III of the Constitution occupies a position of primacy to the fundamental law way above the articles on government powers. This includes the right of the accused for a speedy trial of his case. Jurisprudence dictates, lex reprobate moram – the law disapproves of delay.

The Court values liberty and will insist on the observance of basic Constitutional rights as a condition sine qua non against the extremely abusive investigative and prosecutor powers of the government. Summum jus, summum injuria – extreme enforcement of law may lead to injustice. (Berico vs CA, 225 SCRA 562).

Let’s take the case of Rafael Coscolluela, governor of Negros Occidental for three full terms from July 1992 to June 30, 2001. During his tenure of office, Edwin Nacionales served as his Special Projects Head, Jose Ma. Amugod as assistant and Ernesto Malvas as Provincial Health Officer.

On November 9, 2001, the Office of the Ombudsman Visayas received a letter-complaint dated November 7, 2001 from the People’s Graftwatch, requesting to investigate the anomalous purchase of medical and agricultural equipment for P20,000,000.00 which allegedly happened a month before Coscolluela stepped down from office.

Acting on the letter-complaint, the Case Building Team of the Ombudsman conducted its investigation. A Final Evaluation Report dated April 16, 2002, upgrading the complaint into a criminal case was filed. The respondents also filed their respective counter-affidavits.

On March 27, 2003, Graft- Investigation Officer Butch E. Cañares prepared a Resolution (March 27, 2003 Resolution), finding probable cause against the respondents for violation of Section 3(e) of RA 3019 “Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act” and recommended the filing of corresponding information.

He submits the same to Deputy Ombudsman for the Visayas Primo C. Miro for recommendation. Miro recommended approval of the Information on June 5, 2003.  Acting Ombudsman Orlando Casimiro approved it on May 21, 2009 and filed it at the Sandiganbayan on June 19, 2009. (Take note of the time lapsed)

On July 9, 2009, a Motion To Quash was filed with the Sandiganbayan Second Division by Coscolluela arguing, among others, that his constitutional right to a speedy trial was violated. He learned of the Resolution and Information only on March 27, 2003, when they get a copy after its filing with the Sandiganbayan.

He cited that the criminal charges against him were resolved only after eight (8) years since the complaint was instituted,when the speedy disposition of his case is guaranteed under the Philippine Constitution. His co-respondents Nacionales, Malvas, and Amugod later adopted his motion.

An opposition to Motion to Quash filed by the Ombudsman on August 7, 2009, cited the Information originally dated March 27, 2003, has still to go through careful reviews and revisions before its final approval. And respondents never raised any objections regarding the purported delay in the proceedings during the interim.

The SANDIGANBAYAN SECOND DIVISION, however, recognizes the prejudice caused to petitioners by the lengthy delay in the proceedings against them. It said that it was the Ombudsman’s responsibility to expedite the same within the bounds of reasonable timeliness in view of its mandate to promptly act on all complaints lodged before it.

In the case of Barker vs. Wingo, the Court said that a defendant has no duty to bring himself to trial; the State has that duty as well as the duty of insuring that the trial is consistent with due process. So, it ordered the Sandiganbayan First Division to DISMISS the case against all the respondents. (G.R. No. 191411).

One Final Note: The SC finds the inordinate delay of more than six (6) years by the Ombudsman in resolving the criminal complaints against Petitioner to be violative of his Constitutionally guaranteed right to due process and a speedy disposition of the case against him. (Anchangco v. Ombudsman, 268 SCRA 301)