DBP execs face graft charges

Office of the Ombudsman / Wikipedia Photo

MANILA — Senior executives of the state-owned, Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) are now facing graft charges in the Office of the Ombudsman for their alleged involvement in the “wash sale” of P14.3-billion worth of treasury notes last year.

DBP employees on Friday filed a graft complaint against 14 executives who were accused of shortchanging the government in the said sale.

A “wash” transaction happens when investors sell security in the form of stocks, bonds, options at a loss and repurchases it at a bargain in order to claim  a capital loss and tax deduction or for the  purpose of creating the impression of active trading.

It is prohibited as it may cause manipulation of market dynamics like the prices and volume of traded securities.

This is despite the fact that there are no true changes in their ownership.

The executives allegedly violated the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, the Securities Regulation Code, the Revised Penal Code and Republic Act No. 101491, or the government-owned or -controlled Corporations Governance Act of 2011, the Administrative Code and the regulations of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas.

Representatives of the DBP Employees Union (DBPEU) and the Association of the DBP Career Officials noted in their joint complaint-affidavit that the actual losses of the government following the sale reached P717 million.

They said in the same complaint that the losses were from 28 allegedly illegal transactions of the bank officials from January to March 2014.

“The DBP suffered huge losses from those transactions. This money belongs to the people. That was our money,” DBPEU president Rudelito Tirado Jr.

told reporters following the filing of the complaint.

“We are asking the Ombudsman to look deeper into this because no one will believe that nobody benefited from the money which was lost in the transactions,” said Adco president Francis Romulo Badilla Jr.

Among the respondents were DBP board chair Jose Nuñez Jr., DBP president Gil Buenaventura and board directors Jose Luis Vera, Cecilio Lorenzo, Alberto Aldaba Lim, Lydia Echauz, Reynaldo Geronimo, Vaughn Montes and Daniel Laogan.