Deguito turns down senators’ offer of protection

Maia S. Deguito, Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC) branch manager, testifies before the Philippine Senate Blue Ribbon Committee probe into how about $81 million of Bangladesh’s stolen funds were transmitted online to four private accounts at a branch of the RCBC Tuesday, March 15, 2016 in Manila, Philippines. In a related development, Bangladesh Bank Governor Atiur Rahman told reporters he was ready to quit after hackers managed to divert $101 million from the country’s account with the Federal Reserve Bank in New York.(AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)

SENATORS offered protection to Maia Santos-Deguito, the bank manager at the center of a widening scandal involving the laundering through the Philippine financial system of $81 million stolen by computer hackers from the Bangladesh central bank last month, Sen. Serge Osmeña said Tuesday.

But Deguito, manager of the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) branch on Jupiter Street in Makati City, turned down the offer to be  on the government’s witness protection program during a closed session of the blue ribbon committee investigation of the bank heist on Thursday, Osmeña said in a text message to the Inquirer.

“I don’t know why she turned it down,” he said.

Osmeña earlier said Deguito made statements “closer to the truth” among the cast of characters in the money-laundering scandal.

He said Deguito’s testimony during the closed session easily checked out.

“Maia Deguito came across rather well. We believe most of the things she said because we could corroborate information we already had before we came to the meeting,” Osmeña said in a television interview on Monday.