Ongpin files suit vs AMLC chief

After launching his legal battle against a top banking regulator, businessman Roberto Ongpin has also challenged before the Ombudsman the chief of the country’s Anti-Money Laundering Council.

Ongpin, through his lawyer Alex Poblador, filed on Friday at the Ombudsman a criminal case against AMLC Executive Director Vicente Aquino, alleging the latter’s violation of the Anti-Graft Law. The former Marcos trade minister cited “gross inexcusable negligence” given the records available on the Development Bank of the Philippines’ lending to him for the purchase of Philex Mining shares.

In a statement, Ongpin said he was also suing Aquino for perjury as the latter had sworn to the ex parte freeze order petition filed before the Court of Appeals.

“My reputation has been tarnished by bureaucrats who have not done their homework properly. I have spent a lifetime building it and I will not let anyone get away with reckless and unfounded accusations that undermine a lifetime of hard work. I have decided to file these cases as a signal of protest and warning to would-be detractors who have no basis in making false accusations to get away with it,” Ongpin said.

On the same day that the Court of Appeals accepted the petition of the AMLC to freeze his accounts, the market value of his shares fell by P3 billion, Ongpin said. “At the end of 2012, when 20 days had passed and the AMLC refused to lift the freeze order, the market price of my shareholdings had dropped by P8 billion. More important to me is the damage to my reputation,” he said.

Aquino, in the ex parte petition, swore under oath that the two loans obtained by Ongpin from DBP were under-collateralized.