RECENT reports that teachers have found that their accounts with the LandBank of the Philippines have been compromised are hugely disturbing.
This means that their credits allocated to LandBank have been stolen. I hope that LandBank does not engage in finger-pointing with teachers as to who is at fault for the lost funds. If so, then teachers who have lost money should close their accounts with LandBank immediately.
If there is a problem about this, then teachers should open an account with another bank and instruct LandBank to transfer the teachers’ funds to the other bank as soon as LandBank receives the funds.
The whole purpose of banking is that we can trust our bank to keep our funds safely. If LandBank is not able to do this, then it has no right to be custodian of any of its customers, such as teachers, who are required by their employer, the Government, to bank there.
The Teachers’ Dignity Coalition has reportedly asked the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) to examine the alleged bank cyberscam.
I believe that BSP will follow through. No inadequacy on the part of LandBank should be tolerated. I believe BSP has the responsibility to ensure that LandBank can operate with integrity. If LandBank cannot guarantee that customers’ funds are safe, then it should be closed.
The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) reportedly says that the bank’s system can verify whether or not the teachers are at fault.
We hope that this unsatisfactory situation will be settled promptly and amicably.
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Today is Chinese New Year’s (CNY) Day. Kung Hei Fat Choy as the Hong Kong Chinese say as we wish success to all in the Year of the Tiger.
It is six years ago when 2016’s CNY saw an $81 million cyberheist affecting Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC).
The fundamental of the robbery was that the Bangladesh Bank branch in Wall Street, New York, USA lost around $1 billion to hackers. Most of the funds ($950 million) were transferred to Sri Lanka where the authorities immediately recognized that the transaction was suspicious. Consequently, the cyberheist there failed.
Unfortunately, $81 million was transferred from Wall Street to RCBC’s Jupiter Street branch where the funds quickly disappeared into the hands of the robbers.
RCBC blamed its Jupiter Street branch manager, Maia Deguito, for the robbery’s success. There was a televised Senate enquiry to investigate what happened. I did not hear enough to overturn my presumption of Deguito’s innocence. The Courts later found otherwise and asserted that Deguito was guilty of eight counts of misconduct, each carrying a sentence of between four and seven years imprisonment. I understand that Deguito is currently out on bail.
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Each year, Transparency International, a corruption watchdog, publishes the results of a survey which shows its perception of the relative levels of corruption throughout 180 countries in the world.
The Philippines improved from 105th in 2012 to 85th in 2014. Since then, corresponding to the second half of the Aquino administration to the present, we have declined from 2014’s 85th to 117th in 2021. Thus, 32 countries which were deemed to more corrupt than the Philippines seven years ago are now less corrupt.
We are going downhill.
Presidential aspirants who wish to gain votes in May’s election will need to convince voters that they can be effective in the fight against corruption.
Are there any suitable candidates?/PN
