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[av_heading heading=’Crackdown vs ‘loan sharks’ pushed’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY MAE SINGUAY
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Tuesday, May 9, 2017
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BACOLOD City – Clients of several lending companies in the city complained about exorbitant interest rates, according to Task Force Crusaders (TFC).
Some of those who sought help from the TFC were pensioners, according to Deputy Commander John Chiong.
The TFC asked the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to investigate such cases.
Yesterday, Chiong wrote SEC chairwoman Teresita Herbosa to send a team that will look into lending companies that are unregistered and/or engaged in usury, among other law violations.
Many lending firms in Negros Occidental and this capital city do not have Certificates of Registration or Certificates of Authority to Operate, the TFC said, citing its own information-gathering.
These certificates are required of lending firms under Republic Act 9474, or the Lending Company Regulation Act of 2007.
No lending company shall conduct business unless granted an authority to operate by the SEC, Section 4 of the law stated.
One of those who sought help from the TFC was a 26-year-old woman claiming “partial disability pension” from Social Security System.
She borrowed money from a lending company in 2016 and authorized the latter to withdraw her monthly pension — released through an automated teller machine (ATM) card — as payment for her monthly dues.
As far as the complainant knew, her monthly pension was P2,800.
But when she was about to retrieve her ATM card after completing her payment, a staff of the lending firm told her she was “overpaying” because her monthly pension was actually more than P3,000.
She asked that the lending company give her back the excess amount, but the manager insisted there was no overpayment, the complainant said.
TFC is a volunteer group formed to serve as a “counterintelligence unit” of the Office of the President and the Office of the Solicitor General, and help the Duterte administration in its campaign against illegal drugs, graft and corruption, and crimes.
Chiong stressed that they fully support the SEC in ridding the Philippines of illegally operating lending companies.
The commission has stopped the operation of 104 such companies nationwide, he said.
“Never in the history of the SEC was such achievement reached, only under the management of Herbosa,” said Chiong./PN
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