Biz Buzz: Fallout within RCBC
People who are waiting for the proverbial ax to fall in Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. in the wake of the $81-million money laundering scandal need not wait any longer.
Biz Buzz learned the ax has indeed been swung, and has fallen on some bank officials. Well, one official, in particular. As the top brass had hinted before, the Yuchengco-controlled financial institution has fired its district sales director who was the direct supervisor of Jupiter St., Makati City branch head Maia Deguito.
Based on RCBCís version of the story, it was the haphazard imprimatur of this sales director of Deguito’s transactions that convinced all succeeding higher levels to approve the deal (since it was already cleared with the level below them).
Excluding RCBC president Lorenzo Tan’s voluntary leave of absence and the altogether expected termination of Deguito, the firing of the bank’s district sales director is the severest punishment the bank has meted out to its officials in the wake of the scandal.
But the chain reaction does travel up the chain of command. RCBC has also suspended its regional sales director (the district head’s boss) as well as its national sales director (the regional head’s boss).
Meanwhile, the bank treasurer, Raul Tan whom Deguito accused of having brushed off her concerns about the transactions (which he denied) received a warning from the bank. In general, warnings donít go into an employees 201 file, so that shouldn’t affect his career too much.
Incidentally, Raul Tan is a former treasurer of United Coconut Planters Bank where Lorenzo Tan also previously served as president. After the latter moved to RCBC, he poached the former and made him its branch banking group head (Deguito’s boss up the ladder) and then moved him to head the treasury department. So the two Tans go way back.
In the meantime, all eyes are fixed on RCBC to see whether more officers will be sanctioned. Abangan! Daxim L. Lucas
Philrem’s woes
MORE and more senators are wondering why the Anti-Money Laundering Council has limited its charge sheet in the $81-million money laundering scandal to RCBC branch manager Maia Deguito and casino junket operator Kim Wong.
During the last few hearings, senators have been breathing down the neck of AMLC executive director (Julia C. Bacay-Abad) to go after more parties whom they suspect are being less than forthright about their dealings in the scheme.
And given the way they’ve been zeroing in on the inconsistent testimonies provided by the Bautista couple of Philrem Services Corp., it would seem that the frustrated lawmakers are pointing AMLC in that direction.
Ironically, Abad herself admitted to the Senate that the agency had learned a great deal about the scam from the Blue Ribbon committee’s hearings and a lot of that valuable information (and a few hundred million in surrendered funds) came from no less than one of the people they charged: Kim Wong.
In any case, word on the street is that Philrem or someone claiming to represent Philrem has allegedly offered to return the missing $17 million to its rightful owners, less some friction costs that would reduce the net returned amount to either $13 million or $10 million, depending on who’s talking.
This was denied by Philrem president Salud Sheba Bautista, but no less than Bangladeshi ambassador hinted that some kind of talks were underway for the return of an undisclosed amount of funds.
There may be a some truth to this. Several people spotted Philrem lawyer Howard Calleja meeting with the Bangladeshi Ambassador at Starbucks San Antonio Arcade just outside Forbes Park last Monday at around 10 a.m. Interesting back channel talks are going on, it would seem. Daxim L. Lucas
No merit
AS FAR as the Philippine Stock Exchange is concerned, Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV’s accusations against Philippine Stock Exchange director and STI chair Eusebio Yosi Tanco have no merit.
In response to a call from Trillanes to investigate Tanco, PSE president Hans Sicat said the PSE had looked into the money laundering issues against Tanco. After a careful consideration of the circumstances, we saw no merit in the allegations, he said.
Aside from the PSE, Trillanes had asked the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) to probe Tanco along with his co-respondents in a plunder complaint with the Ombudsman in relation to what was referred to as a University of Makati-College of Nursing Scam. Tanco and other respondents were accused of diverting public funds intended for the University of Makati in the aggregate amount of P547 million to Philippine Healthcare Educators Inc., a private company allegedly owned by the same respondents.
Trillanes wanted PSE to probe Tanco’s moral fitnessî to be a director of the PSE and as head of STI, a publicly listed company. The businessman has been a director of PSE since 2007.
The senator who is also running for vice president has also threatened to call for a Senate inquiry on the matter if he’s not satisfied with the findings of the SEC and PSE.
Tanco had welcomed these investigations so that people would know who was telling the truth, confident that he would be vindicated in the end. Doris Dumlao-Abadilla
When Manny met Zuck
BUSINESSMAN Manuel V. Pangilinan, who heads some of the country’s largest companies, deals with powerful and successful people all the time. But even he was a tad nervous during his recent meeting with Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
No, it wasn’t due to Zuckerberg’s immense wealth and talent, having established the world’s biggest social media platform that’s used by about 1.6 billion people globally.
Apparently, Pangilinan and Zuckerberg aren’t exactly friends on the social media platform because, well, the PLDT chair and CEO isn’t on Facebook.
It’s a good thing he [Zuckerberg] didn’t ask if I was a Facebook user, Pangilinan quipped as he recounted his recent meeting with the young tech tycoon in his headquarters in California.
That would have been an interesting conversation given that Pangilinan was there to bolster business ties between PLDT and Facebook.
For those unaware, Pangilinan’s social media presence is limited to Twitter where he tweets inspiring and sometimes scathing remarks about sports and business to his roughly 134,000 followers.
It was fortunate that Pangilinan also met Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey during that trip, and he was happy to share this fact.
In any case, a stronger partnership with Facebook would bode well for any company, given our insatiable appetite for social media.
Filipinos spend an average of three and a half hours daily on social media, according to a 2016 report by We Are Social, which also showed 48 million Facebook users in this country alone. We anticipate that number to swell by one more after Pangilinanís Menlo Park visit. Miguel R. Camus
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