Irate bank depositors greet PDIC team
By Tonette Orejas
Central Luzon Desk
First Posted 08:23:00 01/12/2009
Filed Under: Banking
STA. RITA, PAMPANGA—Anxious and angry depositors met the arrival on Friday of a team sent by the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC) to take over the ailing Rural Bank of Sta. Rita (RBSR) here.
Dozens of clients rushed to the bank minutes after the PDIC team, led by deputy receiver Leo Cabradilla, arrived at 9 a.m.
Some of them cried, howled or threw a barrage of questions.
“Our money is held. How are we going to survive now?” said Lutgarda Lansang, 75. “This is a misfortune,” she sobbed.
Gregoria Sazon, 74, pressed for answers. Nothing definitive came from the PDIC people, who carried counting machines and laptops, appearing ready to do an inventory of the bank’s assets and documents.
Sazon said her daughter, who was working in Canada, had several time deposits in the bank.
“She’s grieving over this,” Sazon told the Philippine Daily Inquirer (parent company of INQUIRER.net). “She worked hard for her money.”
A man walked past, shouting: “Return our money!”
Many were eager to know how to claim insurance payments, and if the P250,000 maximum insurance could be increased. They got no answers.
Cabradilla said his team came only to serve a notice of closure and take over the 42-year-old bank. Another team will process the claims, he said.
Cabradilla failed to serve the closure order of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas though. The owner, Dr. Victoriano de Castro, and other RBSR officials could not be found, he said.
The Inquirer saw the PDIC team leave at 9:30 a.m., reportedly to look for bank officials or employees. It returned minutes later only to leave at past 10 a.m.
“We’re told that they’re in Manila. We will try on Monday,” said Cabradilla when reached by phone at 3 p.m.
He and his team came a day after the BSP placed the bank and its sister company, Rural Bank of Bacolor, under PDIC receivership.
According to the BSP’s Jan. 8 advisory, the “receivership enables the PDIC to take over the banks’ assets to protect the interest of bank depositors and to start processing deposit insurance claims.”
Like the PDIC team, depositors found the bank still closed, a large public notice plastered on its glass door.
This has been the scene here since Dec. 19 when RBSR went on a voluntary holiday to, as it claimed, avert panic withdrawals. So far, 15 rural banks across the country have closed.
All RBSR employees will be placed under the supervision of the PDIC, according to Cabradilla.
He said the bank could continue if new investors infused fresh capital or could be bound for permanent closure.
Cabradilla said another PDIC team would take over Rural Bank of Bacolor, also owned by De Castro, possibly Monday.
The BSP gave assurance that “with the exception of these two banks, the rural banking sector in Pampanga had remained strong and healthy.”
Twenty other rural banks in Pampanga have a combined asset base of more than P8 billion, deposit base of more than P6 billion and capitol accounts of P1.5 billion.
“As a whole, these rural banks have consistently recorded healthy double-digit growth rates in deposits received and loans granted between December 2007 and September 2008,” the BSP said.
It also advised the public to “avoid making sweeping judgment on the condition of individual banks or to pass on baseless rumors.”
De Castro or his daughter, Mary Anne Naguit, president of RBB, had not been seen in town since December. De Castro lost in his mayoral bid in Sta. Rita in the 2004 elections.
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