BSP says more charges to be filed against Legacy, De los Angeles

MANILA, Philippines- The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas dared Celso de los Angeles Jr., owner of failed Legacy Group and now a town mayor in Albay province, to identify people from the regulator whom he accused of extorting money from him. On the sidelines of the Sixth Secretary Alfonso Yuchengco Policy Conference held at the Renaissance Hotel, deputy BSP governor Nestor Espenilla Jr. said the BSP will file additional criminal charges against Legacy Group and the people behind them for engaging in criminal banking activities. “There are no ifs and buts about it. This is criminal banking activity. Laws have been violated," Espenilla said of the group of banks allegedly organized and led by De los Angeles. In an interview with broadcast journalists, De los Angeles claimed that some BSP officials tried to extort money from him. “Ginawa akong ATM (They treated me like an ATM)," he said in an interview that first aired on Sunday. But Espenilla, who heads the Supervision and Examination Sector or SES, the BSP unit most directly in contact with the banks as regulator, dared De los Angeles to come out and directly accuse the officials who allegedly tried to extort money from him. “Why won’t he name names? He should name names. If he has something, he should speak out rather than try to stir controversy," Espenilla said. He added that a fresh batch of charges will be filed against the Legacy Group, whose banks have already been placed under receivership as their ability to service withdrawals could no longer be met by the amount of assets they collectively hold. Espenilla said the BSP filed on January 5 this year the first round of charges against the Legacy Group before the Department of Justice which is even now conducting investigations to determine if there is ground to proceed to the next level. Espenilla said the DOJ filing was “just the initial round of complaints against some of the officials and directors of some of the closed banks" under the Legacy Group. Many more should be filed once the DOJ has completed its own investigations into the circumstances that led to the panic withdrawal of deposits from banks belonging or related to the group, he added. “We will go by what is in evidence and we will file complaints. There is a big difference between common knowledge and what people are saying from what is usable in court. That is why we have to do our work painstakingly so we are able to get the results we want," Espenilla said. In a related development, some 700 Mindanao-based planholders of three pre-need units of the Legacy Group said they will be filing estafa case against the company officials. In a statement, the planholders also pushed for the dissolution of the Legacy Group in order to partially satisfy outstanding claims of over P400 million. Representing planholders from Davao, General Santos City, and Agusan del Sur, lawyer Alexis Lumbatan has been filing claims of his clients with the Securities and Exchange Commission since last year. Lumbatan said he intends to file multiple charges of estafa against the De los Angeles and other officers of the company for allegedly robbing their clients of money through the company's schemes. According to Lumbatan, his firm represents about 800 claimants against the Legacy Group with most clients having been lured into other forms of investment other than pre-need plans. Lumbatan noted that the remaining trust funds of the three firms amounts to only P300 million when claims of his clients alone already amount to P400 million. “It surmises to say that planholders will get back only a small amount of their investments," Lumbatan said. This is why Lumbatan is pushing for the dissolution of the entire Legacy group of companies, in order to protect its remaining assets and assure an equitable distribution among thousands of claimants. He explained that the SEC had dismissed the Legacy Group’s petition for dissolution since the firm failed to submit required documents such as annual financial statements and list of pending cases. Lumbatan said that Legacy Group is better off dissolved. “We want to put an end in the life of the company because if they continue to exist, they may dissipate the asset," he said.GMANews.TV