It's been almost a month since anything has been written about Celso and his hospitalization in St. Luke's hospital. Is he still in the hospital and sick? is he in the hospital and not sick? or is he not even inside the hospital? What do you think?
We remember a report that exposed Rosario Baladjay's celebration of her birthday outside her Makati City jail in 2004, wherein people saw her wearing the finest jewelry in her party attended by outsiders, and possibly the jail warden. As mentioned in my previous post, Baladjay is now in the correctional institute, but we are sure that she still continues to be able to go in and out of the prison walls. Where else would she put to good (?) use her ill-gotten wealth estimated at no less than P20 billion. While we were researching on the status of Multitel and the futile efforts of investors to get back even a portion of their investments, we came across fora that chronicled the unkept promises of Baladjay to return their money. Do you know that these investors chipped in money to send a doctor to New York based on Baladjay authorizing this doctor to withdraw $300 million from her supposed account in Citibank. Of course, when the doctor and his Filipino hosts met the citibankers, they were told that no such account existed. We cannot fathom why Baladjay to the end continued to dupe her investors, holding up hope to these desperate people who would be willing to listen to anything if it promised the recovery of even a portion of their hardearned money.
We know what Celso has been saying to his preneed investors: in September, 2008, he told investors holding bounced checks that there would be a 3-month delay before he could make good those check with an addition 3% for their troubles, and then when he closed his companies, he told them that all the assets would be liquidated and the proceeds would be enough to settle all the pending claims. We all know what came of all that talk- zilch, nada, nothing! And just like the case of Baladjay, makes you wonder why scammers and estafadors seem to enjoy shafting and duping their victims, not only once but as many times as possible.
This kind of behavior can only point to one fact: that de los Angeles and Baladjay are not only criminals but also sociopaths.
Showing posts with label preneed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label preneed. Show all posts
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
The Legacy Bank Mess: An Expose of PDIC (Part 1)
The legacy mess created by Celso de los Angeles has once again rocked the already ailing preneed industry. The sudden closure last December, 2009 of Legacy Consolidated plans and its two affiliated preneed companies added an estimated 30,000 victims to the legion of planholders holding useless educational and pension plans. Although this development spelled more bad news for the floundering preneed industry, it was not unfamiliar to the public that had experienced years ago the closure of CAP, Pacific Plans, and several other companies in the business. If for anything, legacy plans had just delivered the final blow on a moribund industry.
What is insidious and potentially catastrophic is the deleterious effect of the collapse of the legacy banks on public confidence and faith in the banking system. Surprisingly, it is not Celso that is the villain in this unfolding scenario that is fraught with serious negative implications for the country's rural banking sector. The Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation was established in 1963 with a single overriding mandate – to ensure public confidence in the banking industry. This is achieved by providing all depositors in all banks with an insurance coverage of P250,000; and second, by acting as the ‘receiver’ of failed or closed banks. Up until the closure of several legacy banks, PDIC has been faithfully fulfilling its current overall mandate “to provide depositor protection and strengthen public confidence in the banking system.” Hundreds of banks have closed and been declared insolvent since PDCI was created, but it had remained the faithful guardian and guarantor of the depositors’ money.
The PDIC Occasional Paper No. 1 2005 mentioned that “notwithstanding problems arising from the poor quality of record-keeping, PDIC’s continuing efforts at expeditious settlement of claims has paid off in terms of a shorter period of time for payouts. The average number of days to start payouts from date of closure has improved from 289 calendar days in 1993 to 41 calendar days in 2002, and single digit levels beginning 2003.” However, this progress is all set to be reversed and retrogress with the convoluted manner that PDIC is now conducting the filing, verification, processing and payout of legacy bank claims. It is twisting and bending its own policy, rules and regulations, and conjuring a new set of procedures that are tedious and time-consuming. Since the closure of the legacy banks before mid-December of 2008, PDIC President Jose Nograles defends its actions by explaining in numerous press releases that PDIC just wants to make sure that only “legitimate depositors” are paid because bank officials have not only lost banks records but created fictitious accounts. We understand the need for precautions but it seems that Nograles, reading his innumerable sound-and-print bites, would rather not pay the depositor who in good faith banked his hard-earned money than risk paying a fraudulent claim. As of now, almost 150 days since the closure of banks, only a miniscule percentage of depositors have been paid. None of the 100k accounts above, which account for about 75 percent of the total 135,000 accounts, have been paid. PDIC had previously adhered to the necessity of prompt payment of insured deposit claims, not only to maintain credibility and confidence in the deposit insurance system but just as important, to help eliminate possible contagion effects of closure. So why would PDIC, under the leadership of Jose Nograles, deliberately ruin its excellent track record of single digit days payout and run the real risk of eroding public confidence? The answer is both political and financial but before we delve into the dark motives of powerful men and hidden interests of big commercial institutions, we first need to expose the myths and propaganda that PDIC is peddling to the general public.
What is insidious and potentially catastrophic is the deleterious effect of the collapse of the legacy banks on public confidence and faith in the banking system. Surprisingly, it is not Celso that is the villain in this unfolding scenario that is fraught with serious negative implications for the country's rural banking sector. The Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation was established in 1963 with a single overriding mandate – to ensure public confidence in the banking industry. This is achieved by providing all depositors in all banks with an insurance coverage of P250,000; and second, by acting as the ‘receiver’ of failed or closed banks. Up until the closure of several legacy banks, PDIC has been faithfully fulfilling its current overall mandate “to provide depositor protection and strengthen public confidence in the banking system.” Hundreds of banks have closed and been declared insolvent since PDCI was created, but it had remained the faithful guardian and guarantor of the depositors’ money.
The PDIC Occasional Paper No. 1 2005 mentioned that “notwithstanding problems arising from the poor quality of record-keeping, PDIC’s continuing efforts at expeditious settlement of claims has paid off in terms of a shorter period of time for payouts. The average number of days to start payouts from date of closure has improved from 289 calendar days in 1993 to 41 calendar days in 2002, and single digit levels beginning 2003.” However, this progress is all set to be reversed and retrogress with the convoluted manner that PDIC is now conducting the filing, verification, processing and payout of legacy bank claims. It is twisting and bending its own policy, rules and regulations, and conjuring a new set of procedures that are tedious and time-consuming. Since the closure of the legacy banks before mid-December of 2008, PDIC President Jose Nograles defends its actions by explaining in numerous press releases that PDIC just wants to make sure that only “legitimate depositors” are paid because bank officials have not only lost banks records but created fictitious accounts. We understand the need for precautions but it seems that Nograles, reading his innumerable sound-and-print bites, would rather not pay the depositor who in good faith banked his hard-earned money than risk paying a fraudulent claim. As of now, almost 150 days since the closure of banks, only a miniscule percentage of depositors have been paid. None of the 100k accounts above, which account for about 75 percent of the total 135,000 accounts, have been paid. PDIC had previously adhered to the necessity of prompt payment of insured deposit claims, not only to maintain credibility and confidence in the deposit insurance system but just as important, to help eliminate possible contagion effects of closure. So why would PDIC, under the leadership of Jose Nograles, deliberately ruin its excellent track record of single digit days payout and run the real risk of eroding public confidence? The answer is both political and financial but before we delve into the dark motives of powerful men and hidden interests of big commercial institutions, we first need to expose the myths and propaganda that PDIC is peddling to the general public.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
The face of a criminal genius
Ano kaya ang nasa isip ni Celso when this picture was taken? He was in the House of Representa"thieves" and therefore was at ease among his species. Nothing to worry about since he has so many friends in congress, foremost among them is allegedly the Speaker of the House. Oh! I forgot, may mga congressmen pala na nakainvest daw ng millions sa preneed buyback plan at galit kay Celso at sa Speaker kasi hindi nababawi pa ang pera nila. And they know that the Speaker's millions have been returned by Celso. So therefore parang alert and wary ang expression ni Celso sa picture na ito.
Ito ba ang mukha na pagkakatiwalaan at paniniwalaan mo sa mga sinasabi niya? that he will find a way to return the principal to the preneed investors who are owed billions, not counting the double your money in interest income? Eh kung ang binigay niyang jewelry kay Regine ay binawi niya, ano pa kaya ang perang nasa kamay na niya?
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