Urban Bank chairman tags underlings for P2.8-B caper

The embattled chairman of the ill-fated Urban Bank has pointed to nine of his correspondents in the economic sabotage suit before the Department of Justice as among those who could have been responsible for P2.8 billion swindling that could have contributed to the bank’s April 25 closure.

"I did not have physical or juridical possession of the funds of Urban Bank Inc. I did not participate in its day-to-day management and operations and did not have any executive function and other responsibilities," Arsenio Bartolome told the DOJ panel headed by Senior State Prosecutor Archimedes Manabat.

Bartolome was apparently laying the blame on his colleagues – president and chief executive officer Teodoro Borlongan, corporate secretary Corazon Bejasa, senior vice president Nida Santos, senior managers Milagros Santiago, Rowena Punsalan, managers Mark Ching, Chulla Formanes, Amalia Ordas and assistant vice president Loida Payonga.

In his five-page rejoinder-affidavit, Bartolome justified that his functions "are limited to presiding over the meetings of the board and of the stockholders of both the UBI and Urbancorp Investments Inc."

The Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas charged that Bartolome and the nine others conspired to misappropriate the P2.8 billion in depositors’ money by investing these in what they called garbage transactions, a week before the bank declared a bank holiday.

Bartolome defended, however, that he cannot be held liable for estafa "because the funds were not received for safekeeping, on commission, for administration or under any other obligation involving the duty to make delivery or return the same."

"When money is deposited with a bank, it becomes the money of the bank, and no longer of the depositor. A bank deposit is in the nature of a loan to the bank which can make use of the deposit," he maintained.

BSP-PDIC officials claimed the 10 Urban Bank officials misappropriated the bank’s funds just to service the massive withdrawals in UII.

"The P2.8 billion proceeds was used to service the continuing massive withdrawals and pre-terminations of placements of Urbancorp Investment clients and investors, among whom are the relatives of Bartolome, sacrificing and betraying the interests of UBI," the BSP and the PDIC stated in their 16-page complaint.

Despite the bank officials’ knowledge that they resorted to "heavy inter-bank borrowings," BSP-PDIC probers claimed they still conspired by having purchased "trash receivables."

They disclosed further UBI had already suffered serious liquidity problems as early as February 2000 until April just to be able to meet its "precarious liquidity requirements."