PSBank exec bares list of `high risk clients’

MANILA, Philippines–Chief Justice Renato Corona and a ranking official of a government-owned and controlled  corporation (GOCCs) were among eight individuals who had been tagged as politically exposed person or PEP and “high risk clients’ by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas , an official of the Philippine Savings Bank (PSBank) said on Tuesday.

Testifying before the Senate committee on banks, PSBank president Pascual Garcia disclosed this list of “PEP and high-risk clients” based on the electronic communication (email) of BSP examiner Jerry Leal to the head examiner, Elmer Damasco, dated Nov. 24, 2010.

The communication, Garcia said, was about an initial finding of the BSP’s audit of the PSBank from October to December 2010. Garcia said PSBank got a copy of the letter.

In the email, Garcia said Leal identified the eight accounts that were not tagged as PEP or “high risk clients” by the BSP.

Garcia refused to name the eight accounts, citing the Bank Secrecy Law, except for Corona’s, whom he had earlier identified in the ongoing impeachment trial in the Senate.

“I may disclose it in the impeachment court. But one of these eight that I disclosed earlier was Renato Corona, Supreme Court Chief Justice,” said Garcia.

Based on this letter, Garcia said the PSBank branch in Katipunan released Corona’s signature and identification cards to the BSP examiners.

“We released the customer’s signature card and identification documents to the examiners,” he said, responding to Senate President  Juan Ponce-Enrile’s queries during the committee hearing.

Photocopies of the same documents were attached by the prosecution team when they requested the Senate, sitting as an impeachment court, to subpoena bank officials and records in relation to Corona’s accounts.

When he testified in the impeachment trial, however, Garcia said the documents submitted by the prosecutors were fake noting the “PEP” markings on it.

But Leal, who was also present in the committee hearing, denied receiving the documents from the PSBank.

“I categorically deny accepting any document from them,” he told the committee.

Leal said their findings only required the tagging of the eight accounts so they only asked for the screen shots of the information of Corona’s accounts.

“The findings require only the tagging of the PEP identification electronically in its database. That’s why I asked for the bank to submit to me the screen shot of the customer information file of the Chief Justice,” Leal said.

“I never asked for…the signature cards of the Chief Justice because it doesn’t make sense. The only requirement that we asked the bank is for them to tag the account of the Chief Justice a politically exposed person and then to us the screen shot of what appeared in the computer showing that it’s accordingly tagged,” he further said.