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Friday, March 29, 2024

Bank exec faces ‘many raps’

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SURIGAO del Sur Rep. Johnny Pimentel on Sunday urged Metropolitan Bank and Trust Co. and the National Bureau of Investigation “to file as many charges as possible” against Maria Victoria Lopez, the bank’s vice president who was caught allegedly stealing anywhere from P900 million to P2.5 billion from Metrobank, the Philippines’ second-largest lender by assets.

“They should see to it that the culprit does not get off lightly if we are to fend off other would-be embezzlers,” Pimentel said in a statement. 

He made his statement even as Makati City Rep. Luis Campos Jr. credited the National Bureau of Investigation and Metrobank for apprehending Lopez before she could fly abroad.

“We are all somewhat relieved that the suspect is in the custody of the authorities and not in a foreign territory where we might have had a problem getting her back,” Campos, a deputy minority leader, said.

“We’ve had a number of white-collar offenders in the past who ripped off large sums and evaded prosecution because they were able to flee the country.”

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Pimentel called on all financial institutions to find ways to constantly increase the possibility of getting caught and punished to stop fraud.

“The best way to discourage fraud is by demonstrating to all and sundry that while you can always try to steal, you also risk losing everything and spending a long prison term,” Pimentel said.

The NBI has so far filed charges of qualified theft, falsification of documents and violations of the General Banking Law against Lopez, who was arrested on July 18.

A list of Metrobank senior executives filed with the Philippine Dealing and Exchange Corp. showed that Lopez, 54, was one of the bank’s 402 vice presidents.

The list indicated that Metrobank had three senior executive vice presidents, nine executive vice presidents, 28 senior vice presidents, 59 first vice presidents; 109 vice presidents (Lopez’s rank) and 194 assistant vice presidents as of April 27, 2017.

Lopez dealt directly with large corporate clients as vice president and head of the bank’s corporate management services division.

By forging signatures and breaching bank protocols, Lopez was able to establish two bogus corporate loan accounts worth P950 million and P850 million.

She tried to mask the fraudulent loans as drawdowns from a legitimate P25-billion credit facility available to a true corporate client, Universal Robina Corp., according to the NBI.

Lopez was caught when she tried to siphon some of the money by ordering the preparation of a P2.25-million manager’s check, with the funds to be taken from a deposit account that was supposedly holding the interest payments on the loans.

Banks normally require borrowers to have deposit accounts from which loan interest as well as principal amortizations may be automatically debited.

It is still unclear whether Lopez herself also created the falsified deposit account.

Metrobank staff became suspicious of the signatures on the application for the manager’s check, and of the curious request for the check to be made payable to a person.

When the staff tried to verify the application with URC, the branded consumer food and beverage giant denied ordering the manager’s check.

URC also disowned the loan accounts as well as the deposit account from which the amount in the check was supposed to be debited.

Probers have yet to ascertain whether Lopez managed to draw off the fraudulent accounts before she was caught.

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