Cop retirees mull class suit vs failed bank

An association of retired Manila policemen has taken up the cudgels for the beleaguered depositors of the Police Savings and Loan Association, Inc. (POSLAI) and is now collating affidavits from unpaid members for a planned class suit against the bank’s officers.

"So far, we already have 20 affidavits from POSLAI depositors whose matured time deposits and corresponding interests due totals to almost P11 million. And these are only the big depositors. There are also thousands other active and retired policemen who want their hard-earned money returned to them after finding that POSLAI is already bankrupt," said retired Col. Felicisimo Lazaro, chairman and president of the Manila’s Finest Retirees Association, Inc. (MFRAI).

The group said they will file charges of estafa against POSLAI president retired Col. Vicente Palmon for duping retired and active policemen into putting their money in his bank and failing to pay depositors.

At the same time, the MFRAI assailed the director of the Department of Thrift Banks and Non-Bank Financial Institutions of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) for his apparent "one-sided investigation" on the anomaly.

According to Lazaro, their complaints had been forwarded to BSP Gov. Rafael Buenaventura who referred them to BSP director Candon Guerrero.

"But Mr. Guerrero chose to await POSLAI’s reply on the complaint instead of looking into the liquidity of the subject bank. Besides, there is no time frame for Palmon’s compliance, hence, the depositors are in a limbo as to when they could get back their money," Lazaro lamented.

According to Lazaro, the most common complaints of the depositors are difficulty in withdrawing even small amounts from their savings deposit, and the perennial erroneous deductions from their paychecks which they said seem to be intentional and failure of POSLAI to grant them loans.

POSLAI, the country’s first police savings and loan association established in 1947, has 22,000 members nationwide, whose remittances are automatically deducted from their pay by the Philippine National Police (PNP) Finance Center at Camp Crame. Its main office is located at the Western Police District (WPD) headquarters along United Nations Avenue in Ermita, Manila.