MMG investors: We, too, are victims

Mateo Management Group (MMG) investors, who were named recently in published reports as officers partly responsible for the alleged collapse of the business conglomerate said yesterday that they too were victims of the firm.

"We are victims too," Galileo Saporsantos, Nenita Saporsantos, Tirso Petil, Grace Petil, Estella Ledesma and Carmelita Galvez said in a statement. They claimed they were "mere nominees in various entities comprising MMG and were just allegedly convinced by its chief executive officer engineer Ervin Mateo into signing various incorporation papers of the firm.

The group said that Mateo and his wife Evelyn were solely responsible for the operation, management and decision making of the MMG Group of Companies including where the funds collected would be invested and how much interest is promised and given to the investors. They also said that most of them don’t receive any salary or dividends from the MMG nor attended any board or partners’ meetings of the firm adding their only participation was they allowed themselves to be allegedly "taken advantaged of, by Mateo into signing those papers without asking what they were for."

They accused the couple of allegedly taking advantage of their limited educational attainment and susceptibility.

The group said they too invested substantial amount with MMG and even made additional investments in September and October this year prior to the fiasco.

They said that they were left in the dark as to the exact nature of their role in MMG and to the financial standing of the company when its checks allegedly started to bounce starting Oct. 25. Many of them, they said, lost their lifetime savings.

MMG, headed by Mateo, is engaged in real estate development, film production, water purification, gasoline service and shipping, among other business interests.

Several of the firm’s checks issued to its clients reportedly bounced leading into suspicions that it engaged in a scam, the allegation Mateo vehemently denied as he assured his business partners that all the assistance they need would be provided them.

The investors said they are entertaining the idea of filing charges for allegedly violating PD 1689 (Syndicated Estafa) and BP 22 (Bouncing Checks) against Mateo and his wife to clear their respective names.