Word: mindanao
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...possible that the opposition could still try to stir things up in the provincial cities, especially in Mindanao. Because it's such a class-based thing, with the middle and upper classes backing Arroyo while the underclass supports Estrada, there is a real fear that if the poor come out on the streets again - and it really won't take much to get them there, particularly since they clearly sensed their power this week - that there could be widespread looting and chaos...
...four governments since Ferdinand Marcos' regime have embarked on searches for Japanese war loot?reportedly worth billions of dollars in gold and jewels?that was allegedly buried somewhere in the archipelago when General Yamashita Tomoyuki's forces retreated before the Allied invasion in 1945. The "primitive" tribes of Mindanao are often the first to capitalize on this gullibility. Says General Ruben Cabignati, regional military commander based in the town of Cagayan de Oro in Mindanao: "I know of so many smart businessmen who have been tricked by these seemingly innocent natives." It helps that Mindanao's prolonged Muslim separatist insurgency...
...mountainous jungles of Mindanao, primitive tribesmen stumble upon the wreckage of an American B-17 bomber from World War II. In the twisted fuselage they discover several strongboxes with U.S. government markings. The stacks of printed sheets inside are worthless to the hunter-gatherer tribesmen but not to the city slicker who happens to pass by a few days later?he acquires them in exchange for a few trinkets. At this point in the tale, the narrator reaches into a rusty, banged-up box and pulls out a sheaf of the papers, seemingly yellowed by age: Treasury bonds, worth trillions...
...would buy a yarn like that? According to the Philippine police, thousands of gullible Filipinos and others did, coughing up millions of real greenbacks to a group of Mindanao fraudsters now dubbed the Trillion Dollar Gang. The numbers could be higher: police say many victims are probably too embarrassed to come forward. They should be red-faced, having fallen for the crudest of cons. Using computers and rudimentary desktop printers, the gang ran off fake U.S. Federal Reserve notes in denominations from $100 million to $500 million. The total: $2.15 trillion, more than the annual American budget. The scam...
...first clues to the Trillion Dollar Gang were detected not in Mindanao but in Los Angeles. In early 1998, customs officials found fake Treasury notes hidden in the suitcase of a Filipino Jesuit priest. Investigators eventually traced the fake bonds to a shantytown on the edges of Cagayan de Oro. There, in the home of a security guard named Archie Mingoc, police found a box containing $1.38 trillion in fake bonds and stacks of counterfeit Japanese, Malaysian and Argentinian currency. A raid on the home of his brother-in-law, Renato Waban, yielded an additional $773 billion in bonds. Mingoc...