House summons Espiritu, UOBP execs

Former Finance Secretary Edgardo Espiritu and officers of the United Overseas Bank of the Philippines (UOBP) have been invited to a House hearing tomorrow.

The hearing to be conducted by the committee on banks is on the controversial sale of 33 percent of UOBP (formerly Westmont Bank) shares by the group of Espiritu to his Singaporean partners. The sale made the Singaporeans the majority owners of the bank.

Besides Espiritu, those invited by Rep. Jaime Lopez (Lakas, Manila) to appear before his committee are UOBP chairman Wee Cho Yaw and president Chua Teng-Hui, Antonio Tan-Caktiong of Jollibee, who is part of the Espiritu group, and the Farmix group of small shareholders led by Juanita Tan.

Also summoned were officials of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The inquiry was prompted by a resolution filed by party-list Rep. Emmanuel Joel Villanueva based on a complaint by the Farmix group of small shareholders who claimed they were left out in the deal between the Espiritu bloc, of which they were a part, and its Singaporean partners.

If that were true, then Espiritu and the bank’s Singaporean owners committed "unsound banking practices" by keeping small investors in the dark on the deal, said Villanueva.

Small investors are claiming at least 10.4 percent of the bloc of shares that Espiritu sold to the Singaporeans and which were reportedly worth P1.4 billion. Their lawyer is former Agusan Rep. Roan Libarios.

On the part of the committee, Lopez said he wants to find out if the transaction did not violate the General Banking Act and the Constitution, which limits foreign ownership in domestic corporations to only 40 percent.

He said the committee would also determine whether the Anti-Dummy Law was not violated in the wake of complaints that the Singaporean allegedly used dummies.