Legacy owner stays in hospital after 1st arrest warrant served
MANILA - After being served his first warrant of arrest, controversial Legacy owner Celso de los Angeles remains confined in a hospital since leaving might "endanger his health and life," his lawyer said Monday.
Lawyer Noel Malaya said his client was rushed to St. Luke’s Medical Center Sunday afternoon.
The arrest warrant was served Monday afternoon.
“He cannot leave the hospital unless the doctors give him a clearance,” Malaya told abs-cbnnews.com/Newsbreak in a phone interview. De los Angeles is being fed through a tube inserted into his stomach. Malaya stressed that De los Angeles is being treated for his throat cancer and is undergoing radiation therapy.
The lawyer explained that the doctors allowed De los Angeles to take a break from the radiation therapy last week, thus was able to assume his duties as mayor of Sto Domingo town in Albay province. It is more than 500 kilometers from Manila.
Malaya said De los Angeles collapsed in his Albay home last Saturday. Due to lack of available flight back to Manila on the same day, De los Angeles was brought back to St. Lukes only last Sunday.
The arresting police officers from Quezon City were not able to take De los Angeles’ mug shots, finger prints and other processes typical arrested individuals are subjected to. Malaya said they are expecting doctors from the Philippine National Police to arrive soon to examine De los Angeles’ condition.
First arrest warrant
A local Northern Mindanao court issued the first set of warrants of arrest against De los Angeles and 7 former executives of the Legacy Group of financial companies, which victimized thousands of investors nationwide.
The regional trial court of Misamis Oriental issued a warrant of arrest dated July 8 against the following:
- Celso de los Angeles, Jr.
- Roy Hilario
- Edgardo Cando
- Christine Antenor Cruz-Limpin
- Namnama Pacetes-Santos
- Casilio Ponciano Carpio
- Eva Villapando
- Carolina Hinola
The lower court did not allow bail.
The arrest warrant was from a syndicated estafa case filed by Lilian O'Connor of Xavier Estates and Cagayan de Oro Judge Epifanio Nacaya and wife Florina. O'Connor is said to have lost millions of pesos and the Nacaya couple some "hundreds of thousands" from the Legacy companies' double-your-money-in-3-years scheme.
Cagayan de Oro city prosecutor Fidel Macauyag told ABS-CBN News, "It is now the ball game of the law enforcement agency. If they can bring to us the accused in these cases, the process of prosecuting them will be done."
Macauyag added that O'Connor's and the Nacayas' case have an addendum that named 9 more alleged accomplices. He said the warrants of arrest for the additional 9 former Legacy executives are likely to be issued next week.
String of cases
De los Angeles and Legacy officers have been facing about 50 civil and criminal cases from various Legacy investors and clients at local courts in different parts of the country. (Read timeline here)
Financial market regulators Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp, Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, and the Securities and Exchange Commission have filed over 10 syndicated and large scale estafa cases at the Justice Department.
Preliminary investigations are still ongoing at the Justice Department, which is leading the intra-agency Task Force Legacy, would then determine if the cases filed have merit before filing these in the courts.
The justice department, which is aggregating cases built up by the various regulatory agencies, has earlier issued an order addressed to all regional state, provincial, and city prosecutors that all cases filed against De Los Angeles be centralized in its Manila headquarters.
Only those cases filed in Cagayan de Oro were exempted.
Court filing costs—which were considered steep by some Legacy depositors and investors in Cagayan de Oro—have pared down the previous 26 complaints to 2.
Local Madoff
De los Angeles is alleged to have masterminded a financial scam involving public funds deposited in his 12 rural banks and invested in his 3 pre-need companies and get-rich-quick schemes through an intricate web of interlocking corporations. Some of the siphooned funds—collectively worth over P30 billion—made its way into businesses with questionable business plans.
Previous senate hearings have revealed that some of the money culled from the public have also funded De los Angeles' political campaign expenses and his alimony for his estranged spouse. Politicians have taken on the cause of Legacy depositors and pre-need plan holders--a number of them lowly rural folks whose lifetime savings evaporated in a snap.
Taxpayers will have to shoulder some P14 billion-worth of deposit insurance for Legacy rural banks' clients. The other Legacy investors will have to wait for liquidation proceeds of the companies' and Legacy officers’ assets—if the courts eventually convict them.
Overseas Filipino workers, military and police personnel, and even the government are among those caught in the Legacy mess.
De los Angeles, currently an Albay town mayor, has been touted as the local version of American billion-dollar swindler, Bernard Madoff. The disgraced Wall Street financier, who faced 11 criminal counts, has been recently sentenced to 150 years in prison.
De los Angeles, however, remained scott-free. Until now.
In April, De los Angeles said he has stage 4 throat cancer, thus cannot attend preliminary investigations and court hearings. —with reports from Rod Bolivar, ABS-CBN Cagayan de Oro
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PDIC pay out, is NOT the 'Taxpayers Money
Rod Bolivar, ABS-CBN Cagayan de Oro to wrote:-
“Taxpayers will have to shoulder some P14 billion-worth of deposit insurance for Legacy rural banks' clients”.
I think this is misleading and wrong!
It is not the ‘Taxpayers’ who will be footing the Bill, and may well be less than Php14B, if the PDIC have their way?
Most of the Php60B of the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF), comes from the insurance premiums collected. This was paid as a ‘Flat Rate’ of 0.05%, of the Deposits placed in the Banks. The Banks used funds from the Deposits to pay such Insurance Premium. It is therefore the DEPOSITORS money that will fund MOST of the PDIC pay out, I think you might find.
Here is what I base my ‘argument’ on:-
The PDIC Charter, Section 13, covers the PERMANENT INSURANCE FUND.
To carry out the purposes of this Act, the
permanent insurance fund shall be Three billion pesos
(P3,000,000,000.00). (As amended by R.A. 9302, 12 August 2004)
The Php3B forming the ‘PIF’ was provided by the Philippine Government, and could this be called the ‘peoples money’.
That Php3B of the ‘PIF’ however, is only 5% of the claimed Php60B of the ‘DIF’. This suggests that the 95% balance comes from
(ii) assessment collections, subject to the charges enumerated in Section 6 (d);
(iii) reserves for insurance and financial assistance losses; and
(iv) retained earnings:
The ‘Taxpayers’ would shouldering Php3B, at the most.
It is also doubtful if the ‘bill’ for the PDIC ‘Claims’ payout will come to as much as Php14B. The PDIC would have the public believe that as much as Php6B of that Php14B is related to ‘dubious’ accounts. Deposits where there is not the required Bank Documents and Records.
They should however, ask the Depositors for any ‘PROOF’ that funds were credited onto the Books of the Bank, before rejecting such ‘dubious’ Claims.
The PDIC Claims Officers receiving our Claims Forms, refused to accept such ‘PROOF’ as copy of any Bank Deposit Slips, evidence of Bank Manager/Cashiers Check, or funds transfer to the Commercial Account of said Bank, when we handed the Claim forms in. The PDIC have not asked for any such ‘evidence’ yet, either?
PDIC pay out, is NOT the 'Taxpayers Money
Rod Bolivar, ABS-CBN Cagayan de Oro to wrote:-
“Taxpayers will have to shoulder some P14 billion-worth of deposit insurance for Legacy rural banks' clients”.
I think this is misleading and wrong!
It is not the ‘Taxpayers’ who will be footing the Bill, and may well be less than Php14B, if the PDIC have their way?
Most of the Php60B of the Deposit Insurance Fund (DIF), comes from the insurance premiums collected. This was paid as a ‘Flat Rate’ of 0.05%, of the Deposits placed in the Banks. The Banks used funds from the Deposits to pay such Insurance Premium. It is therefore the DEPOSITORS money that will fund MOST of the PDIC pay out, I think you might find.
Here is what I base my ‘argument’ on:-
The PDIC Charter, Section 13, covers the PERMANENT INSURANCE FUND.
To carry out the purposes of this Act, the
permanent insurance fund shall be Three billion pesos
(P3,000,000,000.00). (As amended by R.A. 9302, 12 August 2004)
The Php3B forming the ‘PIF’ was provided by the Philippine Government, and could this be called the ‘peoples money’.
That Php3B of the ‘PIF’ however, is only 5% of the claimed Php60B of the ‘DIF’. This suggests that the 95% balance comes from
(ii) assessment collections, subject to the charges enumerated in Section 6 (d);
(iii) reserves for insurance and financial assistance losses; and
(iv) retained earnings:
The ‘Taxpayers’ would shouldering Php3B, at the most.
It is also doubtful if the ‘bill’ for the PDIC ‘Claims’ payout will come to as much as Php14B. The PDIC would have the public believe that as much as Php6B of that Php14B is related to ‘dubious’ accounts. Deposits where there is not the required Bank Documents and Records.
They should however, ask the Depositors for any ‘PROOF’ that funds were credited onto the Books of the Bank, before rejecting such ‘dubious’ Claims.
The PDIC Claims Officers receiving our Claims Forms, refused to accept such ‘PROOF’ as copy of any Bank Deposit Slips, evidence of Bank Manager/Cashiers Check, or funds transfer to the Commercial Account of said Bank, when we handed the Claim forms in. The PDIC have not asked for any such ‘evidence’ yet, either?