Roberto L. Figueroa Archives — UP College of Law

The banking and financial system as a weapon of war in the Russia-Ukraine crisis

'When the sanctioned country is brought down to its knees, it brings down with it its own people' All this news about the invasion of Ukraine by Russia have rightfully made people jittery and scared. Some are seeing signs of a possible world war with the tensions in Europe spilling over to other parts of the world. In fact, the breach of Taiwan’s airspace by nine Chinese aircraft on the same day as the Russian invasion was seen as an indication that a similar move may soon be made by China in its attempt to reclaim Taiwan. As expected, the…

Is Cryptocurrency Money?

'To answer this question, we need to consider the basic functions of money, which basically are three: means of exchange, store of value, and unit of account' Cryptocurrency has been getting negative news lately. Just last Friday, January 21, Bitcoin, the largest cryptocurrency, lost 8.7% of its value. The other cryptocurrencies likewise suffered from a steep decline in market value. This reminds me of a question that my student asked me before, when we were discussing currency or money being the most important part of the financial system: Is cryptocurrency money? To answer this question, we need to consider the…

Should banks be held liable for the BDO/Unionbank phishing scam?

'We should not lose sight of who the real villain is here' You have to give it to Filipinos for always injecting humor in everything they do – even in the perpetration of scams. The recent news about the unauthorized fund transfers from BDO depositors’ accounts to the UBP account of Mark Nagoyo brought to the fore the issue of bank liability for online scams and the Filipino brand of humor. I suspect that whoever is the perpetrator of this scam is a Filipino, considering that only a Filipino would fully understand the irony of the manner this scam was done. The…

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