DBP execs face charges over P717-M losses
Market manipulation
The COA said this gave “an impression of unsound trading practices leading to market manipulation.”
“In this case, respondents acted for themselves in trading the GS (government securities) holdings of DBP where the respondents used a ‘strategy’ which is false or misleading in the active trading of the GS holdings,” read a portion of the complaint.
“Such transactions … are highly irregular and inconsistent with sound banking policies which give rise to the presumption that there was some interest for personal gain on the part of the respondents,” it added.
In response to the COA report, Prado, the DBP’s financial resource sector head who is one of the respondents, argued that the trades were done in good faith and that “the apparent losses should be appreciated in the context of the strategy to avoid a bigger unrealized loss on the bank’s portfolio.”
Unfit for positions
The bank employees said the senior DBP officials should be held administratively liable for hiring as heads of the DBP financial sector, asset and liability department and the local bond trading unit, individuals who were not “fit and proper for their positions.”
They said the officials of these two DBP units, who were involved in the wash sales, “do not have professional licenses and lack the qualification, competency and work experience” mandated by law.
“They were hired by the DBP board and management despite the fact that they did not have the requisite civil service eligibility at the time of their hiring,” the DBP employees said.
“Their actions resulted in actual government losses brought about by the unlawful appointments they made to officers who are not qualified for their positions and do not have the necessary training and expertise to carry out their functions and duties,” they said.
The DBP employees said they initially sought action from the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Civil Service Commission, but the two agencies did not act on the letters they had sent them. With a report from Daxim Lucas
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