Grilled by senators, officials of remittance firm Philrem Service Corporation insisted on Tuesday that they were not keeping the “missing” $17 million or $18 million, which was said to be part of the alleged $81 million funds stolen from Bangladesh’s central bank.
“Sir, there’s no $17 [million] with us,” Michael Bautista, owner of Philrem, said when Senate Pro Tempore Ralph Recto asked him during the Senate blue ribbon committee hearing if they would return the missing money.
Bautista’s wife, Salud, president of Philrem, earlier told the committee that they remitted a total of P600 million and another $18 million to a certain Weikang Xu on instruction of the former branch manager of Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC), Maia Santos-Deguito.
Mr. Bautista lamented that they had been answering all the questions thrown at them since the start of the hearing because he said they also wanted to help solve the problem.
In fact, he said, they were the first to offer to return P10 million to the Bangladesh’s government if indeed the money was part of the stolen funds.
“But sir we’re not keeping money, there’s no money with us,” Mr. Bautista said.
Senator Teofisto Guingona III, committee chair, noted, however, that during the past hearings, the couple had been giving contradictory statements in the hearings.
“You are under oath. Ang feeling kasi namin, parang niloloko tayo dito e (We feel like we are being fooled),” Guingona said.
“Sir we’ve been in this business for 18 years and trust and reputation is the only thing we have, yun lang ang meron kami (that’s all we have). Hindi nyo ho kami pwedeng tawaging manloloko dahil po sa tagal namin sa negosyong ito (You can’t say we are tricksters because we have been in this business for a long time), that’s the last thing that we can be,” Mr. Bautista added. RAM
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