A failed judicial system

BANKS are centralized organizations. The authority afforded to a branch manager is strictly limited. There are many officers in Head Office who have more authority than a branch manager.

On the evening of Thursday, Feb. 4, 2016, in New York, approximately $1 billion was withdrawn from the Bangladesh Bank account of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Wall Street, New York. Most of the money was transferred to a bank in Sri Lanka.

The transfer was effected via SWIFT, an interbank telecommunications network. Accompanying the funds was a message specifying the account details where the funds should be credited. A bank officer in Sri Lanka declined the transaction since there were, apparently, syntax errors in the SWIFT message. The funds were returned to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

At the same time, a relatively small amount, $81 million, was sent, also via SWIFT, to Rizal Commercial Banking Corporation (RCBC), Manila, Philippines. The SWIFT transfer is electronic so that it reaches Manila a split second after it leaves New York. Manila time is 13 hours in advance of New York time so that the funds reached RCBC’s remittance center in the early hours of Friday, Feb. 5. The funds were then transferred to RCBC’s Jupiter Street branch.

There is an unsung hero in Sri Lanka. There are no heroes, at least in this context, in the Philippines.

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Last week I wrote: “RCBC accused its Jupiter Street Branch Manager, Maia Deguito, of misconduct and fired her. Was this accusation appropriate or was she scapegoated?”

I did not know the answer. After the conclusion of her trial last Thursday in which she was found guilty of money laundering, I still do not know the answer. It was not clear that Deguito gained any pecuniary advantage from the judge’s verdict that she laundered the funds from Bangladesh Bank.

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My pension is sent from overseas via SWIFT to Security Bank’s remittance center in Manila. After verifying that everything is in order the remittance center credits the funds to my Security Bank account in Bacolod. The branch manager, as far as I know, has no authority or even influence over the process.

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Judge Cesar O. Untalan of Makati City regional trial court Branch 149 ordered Deguito to pay a fine of $109.5 million and sentenced her to imprisonment of four to seven years for each of eight counts of money-laundering.

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Naturally, the Bangladesh authorities have taken a close interest in the case. In 2016, the Bangladesh Ambassador to the Philippines, John Gomes, attended the Senate inquiry into the case. During the inquiry, Deguito gave her account as to what happened. This took place in Executive session (behind closed doors) which Gomes attended. Gomes’ successor, Asad Alam Siam mentioned that the Department of Justice has filed charges against six other RCBC officials.

On the basis of what we have heard so far, I do not believe that our justice system will establish the truth.

Will Raul Tan help?/PN

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