THE Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation (PDIC) will start paying depositors of the closed San Fernando Rural Bank on July 12 and July 18.
Errol Ybañez, PDIC corporate executive officer, said they will start paying depositors with accounts of P15,000 or less this Friday, July 12.
On July 18, depositors with valid accounts of more than P15,000 to P500,000 will have their turn.
“The PDIC will only pay depositors with valid accounts of half a million pesos or less, which is the insured amount,” said Ybañez during a meeting with nearly a thousand depositors who attended the forum yesterday at the San Fernando municipal gym in south Cebu.
Ybañez said depositors of valid accounts will be given two years or until July 6, 2015 to make their claims.
Ybañez said the former bank owners are held responsible for paying those who have accounts of more than P500,000.
PDIC would start giving control numbers for the distribution of payments to depositors today and tomorrow.
An inventory of bank assets is underway.
“If the PDIC will find out that the owners of the bank had violations and there is evidence, the PDIC will file a case against them,” said Ybañez.
Lawyer Nancy Sevilla-Samson, officer-in-charge of receivership and liquidation, said that the bank owners would be given 10 days to file a “Notice of Intent” from the time the bank was closed and placed under receivership for insolvency.
Based on the notice and their investigation, the Monetary Board will decide if the bank should be rehabilitated and reopened, said Sevilla.
She said the bank owners have coordinated with the PDIC and have assured them that they would send their notice.
“If the bank would be rehabilitated then all the accounts will be paid,” Sevilla said.
The PDIC took over the bank last July 4 after the Monetary Board placed it under receivership.
The closure affected thousands of depositors.
One of them was Paz Ezbra, a fish dealer in Pasil, Cebu City.
She told Cebu Daily News she had two accounts in the bank amounting to P500,000 and P700,000.
Ezbra said she deposited the amount last Jan. 7.
“ I don’t care about the excess of P200,000 in my other account. What’s important is that my P1 million will be released immediately,” she said.
Ezbra said she wanted to sue the bank owners.
Another depositor, who requested not to be named, expressed her disappointment.
She said she had been a depositor for 42 years and had a million peso deposit in the bank. /Correspondent Michelle Joy L. Padayhag