The Manila Electric Company, also known as Meralco, is an electric power distribution company in the Philippines. It is Metro Manila's only electric power distributor and holds the power distribution franchise for 22 cities and 89 municipalities, including the whole of Metro Manila and the exurbs that form Mega Manila.
Urban Bank, also known by its initials UBI, was a middle-sized bank in the Philippines. The bank, along with its two subsidiaries, declared a voluntary bank holiday for failing to meet withdrawals and was consequently closed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and put under the mandatory receivership of the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation on April 26, 2000. It merged with Export and Industry Bank in 2001.
Jose Yumang Sonza, more commonly known as Jay Sonza, is a Filipino blogger and a former newscaster and talk show host. He was the former station manager of the terrestrial television station UNTV from 2005 to 2009.
Voice of the Free (VF) is a philanthropic NGO in the Philippines established in 1991. VF works for the welfare of marginalized migrants, especially those working in the invisible and informal sectors. The organization targets issues of domestic work, child labor, and human trafficking, especially of women and children.
The Philippines suffers from widespread corruption, which developed during the Spanish colonial period. According to GAN Integrity's Philippines Corruption Report updated May 2020, the Philippines suffers from many incidents of corruption and crime in many aspects of civic life and in various sectors. Such corruption risks are rampant throughout the state's judicial system, police service, public services, land administration, and natural resources.
The 2010 Philippine Bar exam bombing occurred on Taft Avenue near De La Salle University (DLSU), located in Malate, Manila, Philippines, on September 26, 2010, at 5:05 pm PST, a few minutes after Philippine Bar examinees began exiting DLSU. A Mk2 grenade was thrown at a group of Alpha Phi Beta members from San Beda College. They were standing near Tau Gamma Phi members, who police believed were the real target of the explosive. This resulted in injuries to 47 people, including two who required amputations.
Aman Futures Group was an investment and privately held company based in Malaysia with branches in the Philippines. It has also been allegedly engaged in a pyramid scheme. The group was founded by Manuel K. Amalilio, a Filipino of Malaysian descent.
2014 in the Philippines details events of note that happened in the Philippines in the year 2014.
The Priority Development Assistance Fund scam, also called the PDAF scam or the pork barrel scam, is a political scandal involving the alleged misuse by several members of the Congress of the Philippines of their Priority Development Assistance Fund, a lump-sum discretionary fund granted to each member of Congress for spending on priority development projects of the Philippine government, mostly on the national level.
The Million People March at Luneta was the first of a series of protests in the Philippines calling for the total abolition of the Pork Barrel fund, triggered by public anger over the Priority Development Assistance Fund scam. Initial calls circulated through social media to convene a protest on August 26, 2013, at Luneta Park in Manila as well as other cities nationwide and overseas. Some media commentators consider this as the first ever massive rally in the Philippines called and organised mostly through social media channels.
Jam Vhille Fernando Sebastian, better known as Jam Sebastian, was a Filipino actor and an internet personality. He is known for being in a love team with Michelle Liggayu, who was his fiancee in real life with the two collectively known as JaMich. He received significant reception in the Philippines as a YouTuber.
Mary Jane Fiesta Veloso is a Filipino woman who was arrested in Indonesia for drug trafficking in 2010 and then sentenced to death. Granted a temporary reprieve in 2015, she has remained on death row ever since and consistently protests her innocence to the present day. Her case, among others, aroused international attention and widespread scrutiny of Indonesia's capital punishment and drug prohibition laws.
The Ninoy Aquino International Airport bullet-planting scandal, locally known as tanim-bala or laglag-bala, was a scandal in the Philippines that began in September 2015 and lasted until early 2016, in which airport security personnel at Ninoy Aquino International Airport (NAIA) in Metro Manila were alleged to have planted bullets in the luggage of passengers in order to extort money from them. Victims of the alleged plot were generally Overseas Filipino Workers, but also included non-Filipinos such as foreign tourists.
On March 27, 2016, hackers under the banner "Anonymous Philippines" hacked into the website of the Philippine Commission on Elections (COMELEC) and defaced it. The hackers left a message calling for tighter security measures on the vote counting machines (VCM) to be used during the 2016 Philippine general election on May 9. Within the day a separate group of hackers, LulzSec Pilipinas posted an online link to what it claims to be the entire database of COMELEC and updated the post to include three mirror link to the index of the database's downloadable files. The leaked files by LulzSec Pilipinas amounts to 340 gigabytes.
A rent-sangla scam, also known as rent-tangay scam, is a confidence trick that began to be performed in the Philippines in early 2017.
The Kapa-Community Ministry International was one of the biggest financial investment fraud scandals in Philippine history. An estimated five million people were duped by the religious company Kapa-Community Ministry International, which promised a 30% monthly return on investments for life. Kapa started in 2016 as Kapa Coop Convenience Store and General Merchandise in the city of Bislig, founded by Pastor Joel Apolinario. The City Economic Enterprise Department (CEED) shut down the business for failing to comply with some provisions. In August 2017, Apolinario was charged with 102 cases for not settling claims; 27 arrest warrants were issued. However, all the cases were dismissed with the complainants compensated. Apolinario's company moved south, becoming Kapa-Community Ministry International. The company enlisted new recruits, who became member-donors and in turn recruited new members. On June 8, 2019, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte ordered the corporation to be shut down over the scheme.
Philippine Offshore Gaming Operators (POGOs) is the official designation for firms operating in the Philippines which offer online gambling services to markets outside the Philippines.
The Luffy robberies were a series of robberies in Japan which took place in 2021 and 2022. They have been linked to the alias "Luffy", are suspected to have been organised by detainees based in the Philippines. In 2023, four Japanese nationals were deported back to Japan over their suspected involvement in the Luffy robberies.
Multinational Telecom Investors Corporation, commonly known as Multitel or MultiTel, was a finance company used as a platform for a Ponzi scheme by couple Saturnino and Rosario "Rose" Baladjay.
