Arraignment of Banco Filipino officials reset to September

MANILA, Philippines — Friday’s arraignment of several ranking officials of shuttered Banco Filipino was reset to September 2019 after the defendants — bank director and executive vice president (EVP) Maxy Abad, EVP for accounting Roberta Afable and EVP Francisco Rivera — were given more time by the court to respond to the complainant’s opposition to their motion to quash.

The Inquirer earlier incorrectly named former Foreign Secretary Perfecto Yasay Jr., who was also a former director of the bank, as one of accused in the falsification case filed before the Makati Metropolitan Trial Court.

Separate cases

Yasay is an accused in separate but related cases filed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) against former officials and directors of Banco Filipino in the regional trial courts (RTC) of Makati and Manila.

In four cases in Manila RTC Branch 10, which has set the arraignment for July 1, bank chair Teodoro Arcenas Jr.; directors Orlando Samson, Adelaida Adduru-Bowman and Yasay; and EVP Francisco Rivera were accused of failing to take action against and rectify a questioned loan, despite the transaction having been flagged by central bank examiners.

In the Makati RTC, regulators have also accused former Banco Filipino officials of granting a P350-million loan to a “related interest” firm without the requisite approvals.

Yasay’s rejoinder

In a letter to the Inquirer, Yasay said that the earlier report published on June 21 was “evidently designed and timed for no other purpose but to discredit” him and “impugn” his credibility “as a former secretary of foreign affairs and to embarrass President Rodrigo Roa Duterte who appointed me.”

“The truth of the matter is that there was no schedule for me to be arraigned either today or some future date and I was not arraigned by the Makati RTC for the alleged criminal charges mentioned in the news report,” he said.

The cases are the latest in a long history of legal battles between the central bank and Banco Filipino—one of the country’s largest banks in the early 1980s—before it was ordered shut by the regulator in 1985 due to alleged insolvency and illiquidity.

After the Supreme Court overturned the closure, the bank was reopened in 1994 but continued to struggle with constant regulatory issues until it was again ordered closed by the central bank in 2011 due to mounting losses.