4/16/2021 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly and it is the burden of the party claiming otherwise to adduce clear and convincing evidence to the contrary.[53] No judgment for damages could arise where the source of injury, be it fraud, fault, or negligence, was not affirmatively established by competent evidence.[54] Additionally, circumstances may be obtained from the record that cast serious doubts on the legitimacy of petitioner's claims. The Court of Appeals had correctly taken into consideration petitioner's lack of candor in declaring his status of entry into the Philippines. Petitioner's testimony that he came into the country after February 7, 1979 (the date of remittance of the US$100,000.00) was exposed in open court as an outright lie,[55] it being shown that he was admitted into the country as a tourist as early as January 25, 1979.[56] Thus, there is no truth to petitioner's contention that he could not have authorized the opening of Current Account No. 12-2009 because he was not yet in the country at the time. The fact is, by February 7, 1979, his 7-day visa had already expired (counting from January 25, 1979); he was plainly an overstaying tourist, working against time to secure an investor's visa to legitimize his stay in the Philippines, which explains the haste by which he ordered the withdrawal of the money from Pacific Banking Corporation and the opening of the account in RCBC. It also strains credulity that an investor like petitioner would allow a substantial amount of money to lie insipid and unproductive in a bank account for six years before he bothered to check on it. The earliest known record of his having gotten in touch with respondent bank to check about his money was on August 5, 1985, by a letter of his lawyer. The bank replied on August 9, 1985, stating that "the account was inactive since October, 1979 with a present balance of P1,362.10."[57] Instead of alarm and indignation at the news that he had lost all his investment money, petitioner and his lawyer waited until January 27, 1987 when they again wrote the bank to once more inquire about the status of the current account. The bank simply reiterated its report, and stated that they can no longer produce the records of that account since their retention period for records of inactive accounts is only five years.[58] The complaint was filed with the RTC only on June 29, 1987, or almost two years after his supposed discovery of the loss of his money. Moreover, petitioner's claim that he felt no need to check on the US$100,000.00 because he still had cash at hand was contradicted by his own testimony that in 1983 and 1984 he could not put up the money to fund a letter of credit, lost a major client in the process, and was put out of business.[59] If it was true that the proceeds of the US$100,000.00 remittance were not used up at that time, why did he not check on the money then? Besides, the fact that petitioner, through his lawyer, wrote the Shaw Boulevard branch of respondent bank to inquire about the status of his current account is fundamentally inconsistent with his position that he had no knowledge of the opening of the account in that branch. It simply does not jive with his representation that he thought the money was remitted directly to the RCBC head office in Makati. These matters certainly reveal a malicious intention on petitioner's part to conceal https://elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/50982 10/14