by Lovely A. Carillo
Liza Delinea, mother of two, had this feeling of security that in case anything happens to her, there is a plan to answer for her hospital needs and even her funeral services. And why not, as she had been paying two memorial plans with the Phil-Asia Care Plans, Inc. or Pacpi, one for her and another for her father. That was until she discovered that she was paying for a pre-need plan that did not exist in the first place.
Delinea is just one of the almost 15,000 plan holders allegedly duped by Pacpi in the Davao Region.
“Wala gyud mi nagdahom nga ing-ani ang mahitabo kay empleyado gud mi sa kompanya (we never expected this to happen since we were employees of the company),” Delinea said. She has been working with Pacpi for nine years now since 2000.
Pacpi, which has been operating since 1999, is a company owned by Vicente Afulugencia. It has about 40,000 active plan holders all over the country. These do not include those whose plans have lapsed or have been fully paid.
All of Pacpi’s employees, she said, are actually plan holders themselves, since the purchase of a plan was automatic upon employment. Delinea used to work with the Pacpi Davao office as head of collection, but at the same time, she was also an agent and a collector for the company.
Aside from being a compulsory part of employment with Pacpi, she said, it was also impossible to say no to the plan since it was so cheap at only about P13 per day.
Alan Carpentero, another former employee of Pacpi, has resigned after discovering the alleged illegalities being committed by the pre-need company.
“There is an estimated 15,000 plan holders from this region and this number does not even include plans that have lapsed, or plans that have been fully paid,” Carpentero said. If we include those with already matured plans, then we are probably talking about 20,000 to 25,000 victims from the Davao Region alone, he added.
The number is expected to grow higher, Carpentero said, since the remaining Pacpi agents are still collecting payments from the employees and plan holders of Phil-Asia despite the cease and desist order issued by the Securities and Exchange Commission in 2002.
Parents Enabling Parents (or PEP Coalition) president Phillip Piccio said the Court of Appeals issued an injunction against the order, but withdrew the injunction after it discovered that the company was operating without following the requirements of the law.
The NTD or Non-Traditional Securities and Instruments Department issued a certification that “Pacpi has no pre-need plans available for sale since 1993, it has no dealer’s license since 1996, no saleman’s permit and no authority to operate a branch.”
“Pacpi is no longer allowed to sell plans and have been mandated to only service their existing accounts effective December 28, 1993,” Piccio said. He said based on Pacpi’s submission to the SEC, they only have 4,000 plan holders but based on reality and the papers being held by PEP, Piccio said Pacpi has more clients than that.
Piccio said “yung sa Cap at sa Legacy at least me delikadesa pa; eh itong sa Phil-Asia walang delikadesa dahil ang payments ay dinedeposit mismo sa account ng may-ari.”
Differences in victims
A lot of pre-need companies have fallen down, leaving thousands, if not millions of people ruined. However, the people victimized by pre-need companies like CAP and Legacy belong the middle class. This time, Pacpi has victimized the lower class or the masa.
“Pacpi’s plans were being sold for as low as only P383.50 per month or P13 daily so they were able to target the daily income earners like market vendors, jeepney drivers, fishermen and other low-income people,” Piccio said.
Carpentero said Pacpi was able to sell plans worth over P4 million and this is over and above the 4,000 plans they have declared with SEC.
Formation of Apo Credit Cooperative
Piccio said PEP was able to go around the law by registering as a cooperative under the guise of the Apo Credit Cooperative. He said lawyer Niel Santillan, Cooperative Development Authority executive director, should be investigated by the Senate for giving Pacpi’s cooperative the authority to operate.
He said Afulugencia lawyer Melancio Mauricio Jr. claims that the collection of premiums was justified since the cooperative was duly registered. Mauricio earlier said it was Pacpi’s way of helping its plan holder.
Class suit
Despite the apparent violation committed by Pacpi when it sold plans to thousands more despite SEC’s order, PEP Coalition still finds it hard to file a class suit against Pacpi.
Lawyer Boyet Medina, head of PEP Coalition’s legal team, said the 1997 decision of the Supreme Court regarding the filing of a class suit by the victims of the MV Doña Paz tragedy. In its decision, Medina said, the SC ruled that the victims suffered individual and separate damages and the case is thus not a proper class suit.
He said this has become jurisprudence and it has made the plight of the victims of Pacpi and other pre-need companies even more difficult. Only a few of the victims can afford to pay their individual lawyers so they get discouraged, he added.
“We intend to file a test case in the future but it will prove to be very difficult to question that ruling,” he said.
PEP Coalition is now busy hopping from one place to another, to launch the Signature Campaign of PEP to seek justice for the victims of unscrupulous pre-need companies. They were in Davao City last August 22 and met with many Pacpi plan holders in the region, who just learned about the true situation of the company.
Pacpi is not the first pre-need company to have actually sparked the interest of the common tao, in their desire to double their money, or just be a step closer to their dreams, only to be left flat on their faces. It is definitely not the last.
