MANILA, Philippines -- After the closure of three preneed companies, Senate President Juan Ponce Enrile said on Sunday there is a need for "rigid monitoring and scrutiny" of these firms.

Enrile said he found the regulation of these preneed firms by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) "loose."

"What?s needed is more rigid monitoring and scrutiny over their activities and investment," Enrile said over dzBB radio.

He made the call noting that families who invested their savings in these firms to ensure the education of their children would be adversely affected if these companies were to close down.

Legacy Consolidated and some of its affiliates filed for corporate dissolution with the SEC in December 2008, saying its assets were not enough to cover liabilities, due to ?inhospitable and bleak market conditions.?

Enrile said the government and Congress should address the situation of preneed firms now, noting that when the preneed plans were being marketed, the government was regulating the increase in tuition.

"But Congress imposed limitations on the increases of tuition fees and this affected what was called the actuarial computation of the investments of the preneed firms in relation to their obligation to satisfy planholders," Enrile said.

"Nagkaganun mga kumpanya sapagkat yung mga siningil nila na presyo ay base dun sa existing law sa limitation sa pag i-increase ng tuition fee. Ginawa ang batas na yun, nadiskaril ang obligation ng mga pre need. Syempre mababangkarote nga mga kumpanya na yan [The companies became bankrupt because the premiums they collected were based on an existing law then that limited increases in tuition. The pre-need firms? payment of their obligations was derailed when the limits on tuition increases were lifted. Of course, they became bankrupt.]," Enrile said.

He said the Senate committee on banks, which has not finished its probe of preneed firms, should make this its priority.