MANILA, Philippines--PROSECUTORS HAVE recommended the filing of estafa charges against officials of LBC Development Corp. for allegedly failing to remit to a pre-need firm premium payments made through it by expatriate Filipinos.

In a resolution penned earlier this month, Mandaluyong Assistant City Prosecutor Laurence Mark A. Encinas said there is sufficient ground to file estafa charges against LBC directors and officers Juan Carlos G. Araneta, Carlos R. Araneta, Javier C. Mantecon, Joseph Jeffrey B. Rodriguez, Marilyn R. Aben, Ma. Theresa F. Rañeses, Ma. Eliza G. Berenger and Marilou R. Olan.

According to the complaint, LBC failed to remit a total of P68.1 million in pre-need premium collections to The Professional Group (TPG) -- a financially-troubled firm -- under a deal that was reached in 1999.

Under the scheme, LBC’s overseas branches would act as collection agents for OFW clients, especially US-based Filipinos, who wanted to pay for their pre-need accounts.

“Respondents do not dispute that LBC failed to remit the collections it made from the planholders to TPG,” the prosecutor said. “It is likewise clear ... that said collections for TPG have been offset with [another] loan due LBC Bank and were applied for the payment of legal fees of LBC.”

Encinas said that LBC director Berenguer ordered the unauthorized and illicit offsetting of the payment collections with that of another loan that was falling due.

Last year, TPG president Yolanda D. Miranda filed the complaint saying that LBC owed her firm “unremitted collections ... for TPG’s pre-need products.”

She alleged that Olan, LBC Express Inc. president, admitted that the company could not afford to pay the outstanding amount it owed TPG “due to cash flow constraints.”

Miranda alleged that LBC had been remiss in remitting collections to TPG from its foreign clients as early as 2002.