Court orders POSLAI officials to post bail or face arrest within week

Eight of the nine officials of the Police Savings and Loan Association, Inc. (POSLAI) charged with 23 counts of multiple estafa face arrest within the week unless they post bail, the Manila’s Finest Reitrees Association, Inc. revealed to The STAR yesterday.

This developed as another 16 active and retired policemen and their dependents are set to file additional charges against the accused for non-payment of their time deposits, insurance benefits and personal savings.

MFRAI president retired police Col. Felicisimo Lazaro said POSLAI failed to give the widows and legal heirs of deceased policemen-members the life and accident insurance benefits of P100,000 and P200,000 respectively, despite automatically deducting from their salaries a monthly premium of P100.

The Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 22 had set the bail bond of the accused at P25,000 for each count of estafa for total bail of P575,000 for each respondent.

Lazaro said the deadline for the posting of bail had expired last Friday, but since Saturday and Sunday were non-working days, arrest warrants could possibly be issued this week for the accused who failed to post bail. Aside from Vicente Palmon, the other accused POSLAI officials are Inspector Cesario Tubog, SPO4 Reynaldo Li, SPO3 Radito Perez and retired police officials Felix Pineda, Cesar Baria and Armando Inabangan, and the banks’ civilian employees Vicente Ray Palmon III and Yolanda Sales, POSLAI vice president and general manager.

Sales was not included among the accused ordered to post bail after the court ordered a separate re-investigation of the charges against her.

Lazaro said POSLAI is not registered with the Insurance Commission as attested by a letter from the commissioner’s office dated June 26. "Other complainants, especially those from the provinces, are set to follow suit," Lazaro said.

The new complainants include five widows of POSLAI policemen-members who allegedly failed to receive the P100,000 life insurance benefit after their husbands’ deaths.

Mahilende Yasay, widow of a La Carlota, Iloilo policeman, alleged she found out that even the savings deposit of her late husband was withdrawn by another person when she inquired about it.