DOJ approves filing of estafa, forgery raps vs Urban Bank execs

The Department of Justice (DOJ) has approved the filing of estafa and forgery charges against four officials and one bank teller of failed Urban Bank Inc. (UBI) for their alleged involvement in the pre-termination of a P5-million time deposit account of San Miguel Corp. president and chief operating officer Francisco Eizmendi Jr. and his wife Aurora.

The charges were based on a modification of the earlier findings by state prosecutors who only found liable UBI chief executive officer Teodoro Borlongan on the basis that he unilaterally withdrew the money without the couple’s consent.

Senior state prosecutor Estherbella Rances, acting as reviewing fiscal, said UBI senior vice president Nida Santos, vice president Cecilia Magugat, assistant vice president Rene Colin Gray and teller Marie Cecille Lopez were just as guilty because their coordinated acts "show the conspiracy in the commission of the crime."

"The separate and distinct acts of all the respondents that caused, facilitated and eventually resulted in the pre-termination of the account, when taken together, undeniably establish a concerted effort in defrauding the Eizmendis of their time deposit placements with UBI," a portion of the 13-page review read.

Rances said Santos and Magugat, as ranking officers of UBI, could have sensed something was amiss when they complied with Borlongan’s verbal instructions since they pre-terminated the placement at the Makati head office even when the account was created at the Urban Bank Ortigas Center.

"They pre-terminated the placements with nary a concern to have a written authority submitted from the account holder or to have the cerificates of the time deposits surrendered," she said.

As for Gray and Lopez, the DOJ said they should be indicted for making it appear that a manager’s check was encashed on April 25, when in truth, it was paid the next day – the day UBI declared a voluntary bank holiday.

Borlongan admitted last July 13 that he withdrew the money, which was supposed to mature in February 2004. He explained he was going to return the money intact.

"I did not misappropriate or divert Mr. Eizmendi’s money because it was fully accounted for. The money was intact, having safely kept it in my home," Borlongan explained in his counter-affidavit.

However, his four co-respondents have pointed to him as the culprit, saying they were merely taking orders from a superior.

Monetary investigators had earlier discovered that Borlongan and the others caused the "unauthorized pre-termination and eventual encashment" of the account even if it was supposed to mature in 2004.

The alleged misappropriation of the Eizmendi account was the first of many suits filed by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. against UBI officials.

Embezzlement charges involving P1.8 billion and P2.8 billion funds were recently filed with the Makati regional trial court.