PDIC holds forum today for Banco Filipino depositors

CEBU, Philippines - The Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation will hold a depositors forum today to inform the depositors of the Banco Filipino Savings and Mortgage Bank the procedures how to claim their money back after PDIC has placed the bank under receivership.

The forum will be held at the Sinulog Hall of the Cebu City Public Library located along Osmeña Boulevard. Cebu City Mayor Michael Rama provided the venue for the forum upon the request of PDIC executive vice president Cristina Que Orbeta.

The forum was originally scheduled yesterday but was moved until today because there were only two depositors present.

According to Orbeta, this will be a venue for PDIC officials to explain to the depositors the procedures in the servicing of deposits insurance claims.

“We will try to respond to the extent possible to queries regarding deposit insurance,” Orbeta said in a letter sent to Rama.

Cebu City Public Information Officer Carlo Dugaduga said at the end of the forum, PDIC will distribute claim forms to the depositors with deposits more than P5,000.

The depositors will have to present valid identification cards, deposit passbook and other documents to prove their deposits in the bank.

Those having less than P5,000 deposits, which accounts 53 percent of the total 176,313 depositors in the bank’s 61 branches nationwide, need not file their claims anymore because the PDIC will send postal money order to them.

The PMOs can be encashed at any postal offices and Land Bank of the Philippines branches.

PDIC has placed 61 branches of the Banco Filipino nationwide under receivership, which means they are taking over the bank’s assets, records and affairs to safeguard their integrity and to protect the interest of its depositors, creditors and the general public.

The take-over was prompted following heavy withdrawals that the bank executive blamed the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas for it.

Maxy Abad, executive vice president of Banco Filipino, explained that the alleged “smear-campaign” orchestrated by BSP resulted to extraordinary financial panic among the bank’s depositors.

The heavy withdrawals forced the bank management to cease operation starting March 17. (FREEMAN)