Thanks for welcoming me to this site, SWR.
By the way, I live in Houston, not the Philippines, but I am a Filipino.
I agree that the juror system is imperfect, but unfortunately, this is what the US uses with which to grind out the wheels of justice. I guess the Judiciary Branch understands that the discernment of a panel of lay people has a lot more merit than the decisions coming from a single judge. This is why the jury system is still the system of choice for a lot of legal issues. Understandably, these jurors may not have as much expertise as the judge when it comes to legal matters. But they are there to weigh the veracity of evidences presented, not interpret matters of law. In other words, their decisions are still based on the
evidences presented.
I can also understand the skepticism that a lot of Americans have for anything that is beyond their experience. Skepticism is healthy...but should be utilized prudently.
SWR, I am not someone who readily believes anything anyone says. First of all, I am well-educated and not given to fanciful flights of imagination. Secondly, I am a "man of the cloth." I am human, I admit, and I can be duped. However, I'm pretty good at judging character.
I do believe that there is truth to the Yama
--deleted--a treasure...and that it wasn't just one big treasure that was looted by Mr. Marcos (God rest his soul), but at least a few hundred deposits of different sizes, scattered all over the archipelago, varying also in different degrees of difficulty with regards to recovery/extraction. I have talked with scores of people in the course of my ministry back home. Many of these were our church members who come from the mountain areas. If you understand our culture, people from the rural/mountain areas have a lot of respect for their minister. It is almost unthinkable for them to lie to their minister. During this time, I have become a repository for some of these secrets which they would have not willingly shared otherwise with anyone else. Nor will I reveal these to anyone here, because I still value their confidence in me.
Now, it may be true that some of these things they shared may have come as a result of their own imagination or they themselves were deceived. But I have gone out for myself to check these assertions, and I have seen with my own eyes some of these "signs" they talk about.
Have I seen a gold bar personally? No I haven't. But does this prove they don't exist, just because no one has apparently shown a real gold bar or two? No, it doesn't. Understand Filipino culture (though I hold that these would be true in other cultures as well). If you have just gotten hold of a cache, you certainly wouldn't want to advertise that there. In the Philippines, people get killed for the price of just a cup of coffee, literally.
There are those who have gotten inexplicably wealthy, though. One such case from our city involved an ordinary fisherman. They were so poor they couldn't even afford to have their own "banca" (outrigger canoe). Then one day, he just started buying fishing vessels and a store in the market selling fish. He now has many properties, a fishing fleet, and other obvious amenities of wealth. Where did he get these? From catching and selling fish? Nah-ah. Everyone here knows that no one has ever gotten rich by working hard as a small time fisherman. The insurmountable socio-economic hurdles that small folk have to overcome ensure that. A businessman friend of mine corroborated his source of wealth. He had been to another city and a wealthy Chinese merchant asked him if he knew this fisherman guy. He said yes and asked why. It seemed the Chinese businessman had been buying matchbox size gold bars from this fisherman, and wanted to purchase more.
There are a lot of people with stories like that. They have no opportunities, no skills, no resources, and no influence. They have absolutely no reason to be wealthy, and yet they inexplicably are. And from the famous lines of a popular TV program here in the US, "The truth is out there somewhere."
to The Cream of the Crop
??
To GT, If we follow the guidelines of Robert Cordova about the WW2 treasure seal, hope and maybe the deep will be 75 ft. based on the 50F engraved on the stone markers ( fish and frog), The 50F is a 50 ft. I can proved that the 50ft. started at the water level to the cement and the cement guide was .5 to 5 meters (15 ft.). Maybe, the total to reach the treasure cache will be 75 ft. from the ground level to the cement is 60 ft. And maybe the treasure is directly to the point of the arrow not on the side. Our treasure site is a triple deposits based on the 3 holes on the surface stone marker found.. maybe the second deposit site buried is a Buddha.( as per treasure locator who was trained by Japanese treasure hunter).
