Ongpin welcomes ruling on Binondo Central Bank case

MANILA, Philippines - Marcos-era trade minister Roberto Ongpin said yesterday he felt vindicated by the Sandiganbayan’s dismissal of the P50-billion damage suit against him, the late strongman, and several others in connection with the Binondo Central Bank case.

In a letter sent to The STAR yesterday, Ongpin said the decision of the anti-graft court to dismiss the case proved there was nothing anomalous about the operation of the Task Force Luntian or the Binondo Central Bank and that it had actually squelched speculation against the peso. Also cleared were the late dictator’s widow Imelda – now Ilocos Norte congresswoman – former armed forces chief of staff the late Fabian Ver and several others.

The Sandiganbayan special second division cited “absence of evidence” in dismissing the case filed by the Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) 25 years ago.

The PCGG alleged that the defendants profited from protection money from Filipino-Chinese traders who operated the Binondo Central Bank.

“How defendants Ferdinand Marcos, Imelda Marcos, Fabian Ver and Roberto Ongpin… ‘abused their power to enrich themselves’ …the complaint does not show,” the court said in its 69-page decision.

“No one can dispute the fact that the task force was eminently successful in defeating speculation against the peso and I have no hesitation in claiming that, without it, the Philippine economy would have collapsed and, as a result, untold sufferings inflicted on every Filipino by way of a headlong price spiral,” Ongpin said.

Ongpin chaired Task Force Luntian created in early 1984 under the auspices of the Presidential Anti-Dollar Salting Task Force. It was organized to ward off speculative attacks on the peso at the height of political uncertainties in the last years of the dictatorship.

Ongpin explained that the black market rate even reached P27 to $1 dollar as against the official rate of P14 to the dollar.

“Undoubtedly, the peso was headed for a precipitate downward spiral to P30 to P40 per dollar, causing irreparable damage to the economy through hyperinflation and untold sufferings to the Filipino people,” an article Ongpin wrote in 1986 for the now defunct BusinessDay read.

He noted that with the operation of Task Force Luntian, the peso eventually strengthened to P18 to P20 per dollar and increased the central bank’s foreign exchange reserves by over $400 million.

The National Intelligence and Security Authority rounded up Chinese black market traders and required them to help the government stabilize the currency. They were allowed to make profits provided they cooperated with the government by buying and selling dollars at prescribed rates.

Ongpin said that over a two-year period, the Chinese traders raked in profits of P200 million but that he didn’t get a share.

“As chairman of the task force, I affirm that I have committed no crime nor committed any illegal or immoral act; made not a single centavo from the operations and was in constant fear of my life from individuals who would have wanted to destroy the operations for their own selfish reasons,” he pointed out. 

“Faced with such severe speculative attacks on the peso and the terrible prospects to the economy of such attacks, I say without hesitation that it is a risk I have no regrets in having undertaken,” Ongpin said.