Embattled Bangko Sentral head says he won’t step down

Beleaguered Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Gov. Rafael Buenaventura said yesterday he would not heed calls for him to step down amid doubts that he abetted the withdrawal by then President Joseph Estrada of P143.8 million from Urban Bank on the eve of its collapse.

Buenaventura has strongly denied this, saying, ""How can I tip him off if I don’t know whether he has an account there or not?"

As this developed, Makati Rep. Joker Arroyo and Misamis Oriental Rep. Oscar Moreno kept up the pressure on Buenaventura, this time accusing him of playing favorites among depositors of the failed Urban Bank.

Malacañang said yesterday it will begin looking into complaints raised on the legitimacy of the Buenaventura’s appointment by Estrada.

Asked if he would yield to pressure for him to resign, Buenaventura said: "Of course not."

The BSP chief said he has a duty and that there is a need "to preserve the function that the BSP is independent."

"President Arroyo has time and again stated that she respects the independence in the tenure of officials that are guaranteed by either the Constitution or law," he said.

Buenaventura, a classmate of Estrada at the Ateneo de Manila High School, has a guaranteed six-year term ending in 2005.

Arroyo and Moreno earlier expressed suspicion that Buenaventura tipped off the fallen President about the impending collapse of Urban Bank.

They said Estrada withdrew P143.8 million from the medium-sized bank on April 24, 2000, a day before it closed.

Buenaventura reiterated that he had not tipped off Estrada about the closure of the bank.

"How can I tip him off if I don’t know whether he has an account there or not?" he asked, adding the BSP cannot compel banks to reveal identities of depositors.

The BSP chief urged his accusers to subpoena Urban Bank records to determine if the deposed leader maintained an account with the bank.

"The best way to settle this is for the prosecution team to subpoena records so that they can check if they were opened in accordance with the manual of regulations. Then we can find out if the account does belong to him (Estrada) and if the account has its proper documentation. On the basis of that, then the BSP can investigate," he said.

Solons reveal BSP favoritism

At a press conference yesterday, Arroyo and Moreno revealed that in the afternoon of April 24, the BSP Provident Fund pre-terminated its time deposits in the troubled bank.

Arroyo said the fund, which invests pension contributions of BSP employees, was pre-terminated at about the same time Estrada withdrew P143.8 million.

Moreno said the employees, upon the advice of superiors who also contributed to the fund, pulled out their deposits from the bank four days before their maturity.

"The fact that BSP officials and employees withdrew their money in Urban Bank a day before it closed means they gave preference to themselves and Estrada over private investors," Arroyo said. "This is clearly favoritism, they betrayed other depositors whose lifetime savings were stranded in the bank."

Arroyo and Moreno furnished reporters with photocopies of three Urban manager’s checks for P5 million each representing the BSP Provident Fund’s pre-terminated deposits.

The Makati lawmaker conceded that Urban Bank officials could also be at fault, but stressed that he and Moreno wanted to focus on Buenaventura.

"The issue here is his fitness to continue in office, not his having a fixed term," Arroyo said.

Arroyo said Buenaventura cannot claim that it was the employees who made the decision to get their money out of Urban and that he had nothing to do with it.

"He cannot make that claim because the fact that Urban Bank was in trouble was known only to him and other high-ranking BSP officials. They must have told employees to withdraw their money," he said.

Arroyo and Moreno were members of the House panel that prosecuted Estrada in his impeachment trial. They were responsible for exposing the former President’s Jose Velarde accounts.

Other lawmakers, including Speaker Feliciano Belmonte Jr., have joined Arroyo’s and Moreno’s call for Buenaventura’s resignation.

Belmonte said at the very least, the BSP chief should have submitted a courtesy resignation when the Arroyo administration took over.

Palace acts on complaints

Presidential Spokesman Renato Corona said yesterday they will look into formal complaints that questioned the legitimacy of Buenaventura’s appointment, particularly on the matter of qualifications in compliance with the Central Bank Act.

"Some people have written the Palace. There have been allegations, so far unproven, that the appointment of Buenaventura was in violation if the Central Bank Act," Corona said.

He pointed out that the complaints noted that the Central Bank Act prohibits a former president or chairman of a private bank from being appointed BSP governor within a year after his retirement from the bank.

Buenaventura, who was appointed by Estrada in 1997, was formerly the president of the Philippine Commercial Industrial Bank, which has merged with Equitable Bank.

"According to these charges, so far unsubstantiated, when Mr. Estrada signed the appointment of Governor Buenaventura, the one-year retirement period had not yet expired," he said. "We will have to verify this."

Urban exec gets travel clearance

In a related development, the Department of Justice (DOJ) has allowed a top Urban Bank official, whose name had previously appeared in a hold departure list, to leave the country.

On the strength of an order from Secretary Hernando Perez, Urban Bank chairman Arsenio Bartolome III was cleared for departure to San Francisco on board a Philippine Airlines flight Wednesday night, head immigration supervising officer Danilo Almeda said yesterday.

Bartolome, along with eight other top officials of the failed bank, had been place in the Bureau of Immigration’s hold departure list after being accused of participating in anomalous transactions that led to the bank’s closure early last year. – With Marichu Villanueva, Rey Arquiza