– BSP files 7th criminal case vs Delos Angeles, officers
– PDIC: Legacy claims filed for non-existent deposits
MOST, if not all, of Davao City-based victims of the Legacy mess cannot file deposit insurance claims with the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation (PDIC). The reason: their claims are only based on the checks issued to them by the Legacy-affiliated pre-need company.
“My clients do not have savings or time deposits documents to substantiate their claims before the PDIC. They only have checks or receipts as evidence,” said lawyer Isrealito Torreon.
In a meeting last Saturday at Magsaysay Park, Torreon informed the Legacy mess victims in attendance that they have to pursue a citizens’ initiated complaint for them to be compensated, even if it is in the form of properties of Legacy owner Celso delos Angeles.
“We should move forward. We should find ways to overcome our constraints and limitations,” the lawyer told his victim-clients, most of them retirees.
Torreon said the biggest obstacle to pursuing the civil case is the cost of the filing fee pegged at P20,000 per one million pesos of claim.
“With the huge amount they have invested, that’s a lot of money,” he said. He did assure the victims, however, that he had already “come up with solutions” when they finally file the case within the next two weeks.
Nenita Marañon, 67, who invested P200,000 from her retirement benefit, expressed hope that the case they will be filing will enable her to get back her money even if it’s only a portion of what she had invested.
“We have approached almost every government agency concerned, but nothing has happened. Our hope now lies in the case that we will file in court,” she said.
Meanwhile, lawyer Javey Francisco of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)-Davao said their head office has started distributing notices and checks to plan holders who are qualified to claim from the Legacy trust fund amounting to P400 million that was recently unfrozen through a court order.
“Those who filed first are given priority status, but here in Davao we are still waiting for an advice as to when the distribution will start,” he said.
Even if the victims can present evidence of their time deposits, chances are their accounts will found to be non-existent.
The PDIC has reported that a total of 3,023 deposit insurance claims were filed for non-existent accounts in Legacy banks as of June 5, 2009. These are claims for accounts that are not even in the master list of deposits.
PDIC President Jose C. Nograles said these claims will be automatically denied, adding that this is about 2.8% of the total claims of 107,648 filed for Legacy banks.
Meanwhile, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas filed the seventh criminal case against Legacy founder Celso delos Angeles Jr. and a number of officers in his bank in Cebu. The case is for large-scale estafa in connection with the alleged stealing of P262.2 million worth of bank deposits. BSP earlier filed four cases of estafa and cases of falsification of public and commenrcial documents against the same officers.
Nograles said that Sections 4(f) and 4(g) of the PDIC Charter provide the bases for determining which are insured deposits: the deposits should be recorded in the bank’s records and it should show evidence of cash flow. PDIC has no legal obligation to pay claims for deposit accounts not found in the master list of the Legacy banks as of the date of PDIC bank takeover.
All 12 Legacy-affiliated banks have claims for non-existent deposits, the highest number of which were filed with
the closed San Pablo City Development Bank (1,441 claims) followed by 423 claims in the Rural Bank of Paranaque and 295 claims in the Philippine Countryside Rural Bank.
Following are the rest of the claims for non-existent deposits: Dynamic Bank, 274; Rural Bank of DARBCI, 204; Pilipino Rural Bank, 143; Rural Bank of Bais, 95; Nation Bank, 41; First Interstate Bank, 41; Bank of East Asia, 32; Rural Bank of Carmen, 29; and Rural Bank of San Jose, 5. Letters to concerned depositors notifying them of the denial have already been mailed.
Nograles explained that the process of validating authenticity and legitimacy of deposit accounts is a tedious one which takes so much time, but PDIC is determined to ensure that it pays deposit insurance claims within the bounds set by law according to its mandate.
