This is SMSI’s (StickyMedia Solutions, Inc.) reply to “A Public Statement on the Search Warrant and Allegations of Theft by MEARA INTERACTIVE.”

The article begins as, “In light of recent events where a search warrant was served last Friday, October 28, 2011 at around 9:30PM in the evening at the office premises of MEARA INTERACTIVE based on allegations made by MICHAEL ALAN TURNER, a foreign national, that his alleged stolen computer units are being used by the corporation., let it be known that:

 

To this we SMSI say:

It was not alleged, but it was proven that the 6 server units stolen from Davao, aircon units and laptops personally belonging to Michael Alan Turner, were found in possession of MEARA INTERACTIVE officers and employees at both offices, the one at Megapension building located at Macasandig and the second at Nazareth 30th street. And second is we object to Agustin Rodano and his cohorts always emphasizing that Michael Turner is an American, a foreigner, as bearing racists undertones, and it implies that Michael Turner is already guilty by the mere fact that he is a foreigner, and an American at that.

1.    Meara …… No contest to point number one, thus we won’t waste time on it.

2.  The computer units used by the corporation are all brand new and purchased at Columbia computer Center with O.R. #s 52270, 52611, 52612, 52613.

To this we SMSI say:
We would want Meara interactive to post scanned copies of said receipts. Knowing the MEARA Interactive gang and knowing their legendary ability to twist facts and manipulate numbers, nothing these people say without hard physical back up can be believed.


3.    No criminal case has been filed in court against any of MEARA’s employees, officers or stockholders; 

To this we SMSI say:
Duh!! There are a total of at least 8 criminal cases filed and pending at the Cdo Prosecutors office and Davao Prosecutors office combined, filed against MEARA Interactive employees, officers and stockholders. You have been receiving the subpoenas from time to time on these cases. We have received copies of said subpoenas. You, MEARA Interactive officers and your shareholders have been replying through affidavits for these. You have hired 5 lawyers in Cdo and 1 law firm and one lady attorney in Davao for said cases. And yet you have the audacity to say that you have no knowledge of any criminal cases filed against you, your cohorts, your employees and your stockholders? Your employees now have pending criminal cases on them. When will you make them aware of that fact? When their warrants come out?

4.    MEARA INTERACTIVE has objected to the validity of the issuance of the search warrant by MTCC Branch 2 because a similar application has already been dismissed at RTC Branch 22 and there is a pending civil case pertaining to OWNERSHIP of the alleged stolen properties filed at RTC Branch 18;

And

5.    In the civil case at RTC-18 (Civil Case No. 2011-287), the court has denied the motion for the issuance of a restraining order on the ground, among others, that Michael Alan Turner has failed to prove a clear legal right to stop the operations of the defendants in that case, including Meara Interactive.

To this we SMSI say:
To object is one’s democratic right. By all means MEARA Interactive should exhaust all legal avenues to save their thieving hides. Agustin Rodano, Elmer “Tabby” Taboada, Al-Jedidiah “Jeedo” Aquino, Melissa “Lia” Fernando, Rex “Batman” Cortez and Alex Tabuan were caught on CCTV stealing 4 server computers from SMSI office located at door 9, Marel 2 building, Tiano-Gomez Sts., on July 27, 2011. Sadly the stealing of personal laptops and the projector were not caught on CCTV as these were taken from the 2nd floor office in the same building. Said footage was posted on Michael Turners’ blog, but it seems the MEARA INTERACTIVE Board members are blind to visual evidence that puts them in bad light. They just refuse to acknowledge its existence. The civil case in RTC Branch 18 refers to Civil Case 2011-287, filed by MICHAEL ALAN TURNER vs. MEARA interactive Inc. and not the other way around mind you! 6 pleadings were prayed for in said Civil suit, and the granting of a TRO (Temporary Restraining Order) was just one of 6 pleadings or reliefs sought from the court being presided by Judge Alcantar. Said judge’s refusal of the TRO is not tantamount to the whole case being dismissed. A Motion for Reconsideration over the Denial of TRO has been file by complainant MICHAEL ALAN TURNER’s counsel, Atty. Alejandro Jose “Joe” Pallugna; but if said motion were eventually to be denied, said civil case will still continue on the remainder of 5 pleadings or reliefs prayed for in the civil suit case no. 2011-287, filed against defendant MEARA INTERACTIVE. It is by no means the end for said civil case, and it is by no means a decisive win for the Rodano’s and their cohorts. All it means is that one pleading of 6 was denied for the judge was not convinced beyond reasonable doubt by the evidence presented and for him it came short of showing undeniably that Michael Alan Turner would lose income or would suffer irreparable and irreversible losses if Meara interactive and it’s bandit officers’ operations were not shut down.

6.    Meara interactive has questioned the fundamental defects of the Search Warrant permitting the entire 2nd floor office to be searched and for items loosely described in the warrant as: Computers, servers, software and accessories” that enabled the police to seize all the legally purchased computers and other related equipment of the corporation found therein because in this day and age it is common for any office in the country to contain “Computers, servers, software, and accessories” within their premises.

To this we SMSI say:
Again, to question is one’s democratic right, as well as every human being’s right to satisfy its inquisitive nature. In spite of how Meara interactive’s officers behaved in the final days while still connected to SMSI, we would like to think of them as human beings. Albeit low humans, but human beings all the same. The search warrant has annexes that are not meant for public view and details of such are known only to the judge who issued the search warrant and Col. Montalba, the policeman who applied for said Search Warrant based on intensive reconnaissance (weeks of it) on the 2 Meara offices, and the police submitted photographic and video evidences acquired during said undertaking. The judge took painstaking time, (7 days to our knowledge, the 7th day included an 8 hour intensive one on one Q&A between the policemen who did said surveillance and parties in the know on one side and the judge on the other), and only when the judge was totally satisfied beyond any reasonable doubt with the documentary evidence, such coupled with photographic and video evidence, that the judge signed the Search Warrant on the eve of October 28, 2011. Everything was done with great care to detail and legality for any warrant issuing judge knows that the aftermath of serving any warrant is a legal uproar from the defending party, where defense counsels will stoop to any means just to declare the warrant void on any tiny technicality conjured or available, so as to free their criminal clients. Don’t you MEARAi guys watch “Law and Order”? Hasn’t T.V. taught you anything?

7.    Meara interactive has protested the inclusion and seizure of the personal laptops, as well as the attempted seizure of personal cellphones owned by its employees during the execution of aforementioned search warrant. These aforementioned items were not listed in the items to be searched;

To this we SMSI say:
Again, to protest is every citizen’s democratic right. Personal laptops were part of the list of items to be seized. Tabby and Lia have laptops that are the personal property of Michael Alan Turner. Shame on you two. Meara interactive officers and employees have at least 4 units of personal laptops that were personally bought by Michael Alan Turner. But as thievery runs in their blood, none of these equipments are ever going to be voluntarily returned to its rightful owner. The policemen temporarily confiscated cellphones of all people at Meara interactive Megapension office in Macasandig, for the second raiding team had not yet reached and entered the Nazareth office of Meara interactive, and the policemen didn’t want anyone alerting them for this would sabotage and negate the surprise element of the raid, and Meara interactive employees could abscond with evidence in their hands. Once it was known that the second team was already at their target and the search warrant was being executed, the employees were allowed to take their cellphones back. One should also understand the technical aspects of a search warrant. The computer servers from Davao were identified. Secondly, all the screens were showing work being done for GearySEO, DiscoverySD, Referral Solution Group LLC just to name a few. All are clients of Harvest SEO; all have exclusive contracts with HarvestSEO or Michael Alan Turner, and not with Meara interactive, and certainly not with Agustin Rodano. Programs and data which were an integral part of HarvestSEO and SMSI, and tools used in conducting its SEO business, all of which were acquired by Michael Alan Turner over the years, were seen running on all servers located at both offices. Thus the search warrant became a tool to arrest the conspirators under the rule of “In Flagrante” meaning a continuing criminal enterprise. Thus everyone present had to be detained under the law. It’s a good thing Atty. Limbaco was not subjected to the shameful experience of an arrest as one of the Meara interactive conspirators (she has shares in Meara interactive Inc. as she is one of its incorporators), for Atty. Pallugna would not allow it, she being a student in one of his classes where he was a teacher, when she was still a student at law in Xavier University, Cdo, asides from the fact that it was also a common professional courtesy.

8.    Meara has filed a motion to quash the search warrant and to have the seized items returned. We have raised as one of the grounds that the police and the court has violated our Constitutional rights, including the following:

Article III Bill of Rights

SECTION 2: The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures of whatever nature and for any purpose shall be inviolable, and no search warrant or warrant of arrest shall issue except upon probable cause to be determined personally by the judge after examination under oath or affirmation of the complainant and the witness he may produce, and particularly describing the place to be searched and the persons or things to be seized.

The 1987 Constituition of the Republic of the Philippines

To this we SMSI say:
Please read our answer to point number 7. Meara interactive board members and officers have an obsession with being repetitive and loud. It is as if they believe that by being loud and by being consistently repetitive they would be more believable, have a better chance at being well heard and gain more sympathy through it. It’s a well used media tool of the communist parties in countries they hold or have held power, and of despots lording it over their subjects. Repeat and repeat. Bombard the masses with the same bullshit over and over, day in and day out, and soon enough it will be considered as something inevitable for these ideas are already deeply imbedded in peoples psyche.

9.    Lastly, Meara interactive strongly condemns the illegal arrest of a number of its employees and detention of some of its top management personnel as there was NO ARREST WARRANT ISSUED and there was no illegal contraband found in the premises.
It is meara interactive’s position that the issuance of the search warrant and its execution and the subsequent arrest of some of meara’s officers are anomalous, malicious, unfair, and oppressive. The public is informed that meara interactive business operations will continue to operate in accordance with law.
The public is further informed to check the records of the cases before the Courts and Prosecutor’s office to confirm the position of the corporation which will vindicate meara interactive from the unfounded allegations of Michael Alan turner.

To this we SMSI say:
Redundant points galore again!!!! Well…. When the president of the Philippines Mr. Aquino, tried to influence the Supreme Courts lately, in his personal vendetta against the past president Arroyo and her family, the Justices were furious. They reminded the president that while his job specifications lay in the “Administrative” and “Executory” aspect of the law, that being his role as per peoples mandate, in the governance of the Philippines, the Justices said they were duty and honor bound to serve the “Judicial” side of governance, and that the president should not and could not dictate how the Justices should rule on certain cases, nor should he put words in their mouths. For the person executing and administering the law should not meddle in the deciding of cases and in the wordings of the judgments passed by judges, for it would show and cultivate bias. So who is meara interactive to assess the law and decide what is legal or illegal, when even the president, who holds the highest post of this country was chastised for trying just that? Meara interactive officers seemingly have hot air in their head. Riding high on some inert gas one could say. They want to dictate even the courts how to rule and what to say in their decisions. Anything less is a farce, an oppression of humankind on the whole. Get off your high horses. You are nothing but common thieves posing as class freedom fighters. The criminal cases pending at the Prosecutor’s Office in Cdo would be a heavy read for any ordinary human. The stapled affidavits supporting the cases against meara inc., its officers, its employees and its incorporators, would fill a small room. All in all there are more than 50 of you on one side and the numbers of defendants are rising. You have more than 90 employees plus 12 officers or managers. Add to that the incorporators of your corporation and that is the final number of defendants. All of you are going to face criminal and civil suits in the near future. All of you have only yourselves; you with your wrong, racist, biased thinking, your warped and lopsided view of right or wrong, fueled by your collective greed to blame.

How to steal from a foreigner in the Philippines and get away with it

Let us begin with a story. A foreigner (American in this case) by the name of Mike, starts an online negotiation with a Filipino (a Filipino-chinese in this case) named Gus, sometime around the year 2003. The Filipino-chinese (tsinoy) named Gus, with 3 other Filipinos, start working on a contractual/per diem basis for the foreigner Mike over the internet, and in a few weeks their business is flourishing. The foreigner comes down to the Philippines around 2004 and personally meets the tsinoy. They negotiate how to increase their output and how to enter into a symbiotic business relationship. The foreigner is deeply impressed by the tsinoys humbleness and straight-forwardness. He also meets a few women he met “on line” and decides on one named “marisyl” as being the best choice and enters into a personal relationship with her. A few months pass and there is bliss in their lives. Marisyl then becomes head of the foreigner’s business office in 2005, and the Filipinos have a clash of personalities, for a middle class Filipino, especially a tsinoy, would easily take orders from a foreigner but from a Filipina….. Well, they won’t. Thus a fight ensues between the foreigner and Marisyl, unbeknownst to both that it is this tsinoy Gus who is fanning flames on both sides. The foreigner sides with his tsinoy worker over his girl friend, and a new business office is born. The tsinoy has gained the foreigners total trust by this time. He is given free hand to hire and fire people in the new business office, and to run the day to day affairs of the business in a way that has the least resistance from the foreigner. The tsinoy can make decisions without conferring with the foreigner first. The foreigner trusts this tsinoy so much that eventually when he gets married to a local girl in 2006, named Marissa, his best man is said tsinoy. He even makes this tsinoy Godfather to his only child, a son named Horace, at his Roman Catholic baptismal in 2009. The foreigner gives lavish salaries and bonuses to this tsinoy and his group of chosen people from 2005 to 2011. The tsinoy runs the foreigners business as if it were his own. He and his wife Riza sometimes publicly call said business their own, and because the foreigner never reacts due to his total faith in said tsinoy, people believe their claim. In 2009, the foreigner expands by opening another office in a city 7hrs away by land from the first in a city called Davao. Mike spends money on furnishing and computer equipments and sets up office and a staffhouse in Davao. He puts Gus and his cohorts in full control there too. Soon business is booming. The tsinoy, seeing the viability of both offices, suddenly gets an ambitious idea to start a company to compete with the foreigners company. Thus for more than a year, he, his wife, and his chosen people, in tandem, embezzle as much as they can from the company accounts and finances, billing even personal accounts such as credit cards, personal cellular phone bills, internet bills, restaurant bills and such to the foreigners company expense and bank accounts, all in the guise of corporate expenses. They also start opening bank accounts in the foreigner’s company name, but in which they are the signatories and not the foreigner. To accommodate this they make themselves Board of Directors of the business corporation and convince the foreigner that his name will not be included in the board to save him from any legal duress arising from legal claims and employee suits. All along the foreigner tags along like an unsuspecting child in a Grimm brothers horror fairy tale. The bubble bursts when in 2011 the tsinoy asks the foreigner to pay millions to their uncle who poses as a businessman who allegedly owns all the computers in the foreigner’s offices. The foreigner asks for accounting for he knows all the equipment should already be paid for. The tsinoy pressures Mike to no avail. Mike wants accounting for the last 6 years and is adamant on it. The tsinoy Gus knows the game is up. Thus he rallies his tsinoy family, conspires with his underlings, and raids the foreigner’s offices at an opportune time, trying to get all the main servers and data of the foreigners clients, without which the foreigner can’t operate nor can he collect past due accounts. The foreigner tries to defend himself, but as his lawyer has just left for a month long vacation to Europe, there is not much that he can do. And the tsinoy knew that. For he and his cohorts have planned everything well, from execution of the raid to tactical support in the aftermath. He has already prepared a new office and he transfers all the stolen equipment there. He then sends his underlings, who have been poisoning the minds of the workers working for the foreigner for the past year and a half, and thus have maintained people totally brainwashed to their cause. He uses the age old “oppressed pinoy by an exploiting green-eyed devil foreigner” formula to a great extent, and as all his workers being pinoys, have long fallen for his wily tricks. The tsinoy has also used the same trick on members of the Rotary civic club of which he and the foreigner Mike were members and on local politicians too. He is successful in painting an extremely bad picture of the foreigner. As Mike is not well versed in local customs and ways, he is no match to the wily ways of Gus and his 11 cohorts. The tsinoy has thus taken the foreigners business, by taking his equipment, his accumulated data, his time tested processes, his well trained employees, and all his international clients. He then starts serving said clients as if nothing happened, and sure enough, the clients start paying the tsinoy for past due and due work done, for the tsinoy is the only one now who can deliver work direly needed by the clients due to close business deadlines. All the while the foreigner is trying his best to get his business and his clients back. He reaches a low point for his clients won’t pay him his past due billings of 3 months and in one instance 4 months, for which he had already made payroll. The foreigner now realizes that he has to start afresh and that he has lost his clients and 8 years of painstaking labor to the tsinoy. All the foreigner can do now is file multiple criminal and civil cases and wait for the justice system to grind its wheels slowly towards an end in which the foreigner might not be the victor. All this while the tsinoy Gus will be making money from Mikes clients, procuring Mikes business processes and tools, all this for no investment, be it in capital or in time resources, at all. He can easily pay a battery of lawyers (8 lawyers in this case), and can delay the justice system, for he is making good money from the business that he stole. The ironic thing is that pinoys, educated ones at that, still fall for the brown man vs. white man routine or propaganda, they still think in colonial ways in this modern time and age, and thus swayed, support the wrong elements within the Filipino people, just for the mere fact that the offended party is a white man. What happened to right and wrong? Where is fair play? Are these forgotten terms of the old? Do we start ganging up on all foreigners who try to invest in the Philippines now, even though they try to elevate us from our economic dire straits? Then how can we blame these well wishing foreigners, who go back to their respective countries after getting royally screwed here in the Philippines, from ganging up on pinoys there? Or is this another routine of “I can do to you but you can’t do the same back to me or mine?” We then start labeling these foreigners as tyrants and racist but we don’t seem to realize that we started the buck moving and these foreigners are just passing it forward. Either we start realizing that condoning such thievery has a long lasting effect; where innocent, hard working migrant Filipino workers will suffer for our misdeeds here while they work and toil in foreign lands, or we should all join the club of Gus and his cohorts and steal all the foreign investor’s blind. This way we could alienate our whole race from the outside world and no one would ever invest in or hire pinoys. The choice is ours. So is the shameful outcome of our bad choices.