Cebu City (March 9) -- Legacy chief Celso de los Angeles’ headaches are now migraine-size as the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) filed another set of criminal charges, its fourth, against De los Angeles and his alleged cohorts at the Legacy Group.

As in a previous complaint, the charges involved syndicated estafa against De los Angeles, who is a town mayor, and 11 other Legacy Group bank officers plus many other unidentified men and women for allegedly bilking unwitting depositors in Leyte province of an estimated P487 million.

The BSP told the Department of Justice that De los Angeles and his cohorts willfully, unlawfully and fraudulently misappropriated money belonging to depositors of the then Rural Bank of Kananga, Leyte now known as the First Interstate Bank or FIB.

An FIB official testified that it was very easy for them to attract Leyte depositors by offering them extraordinarily high interest rates.

The official also claimed Legacy bank officers, just before they closed shop, were under direct orders from De los Angeles “to transfer available funds to the account of Legacy Consolidated Plans Inc. (LCPI) and to destroy any evidence that would implicate him (De los Angeles) and his cohorts in the various schemes they perpetrated.”

As of December 2008, FIB had only about P1 million in cash, the bank official said.

The first set of complaints involved false reporting and false statements against 16 Legacy officials, employees and agents filed on Jan. 5 this year,

followed about month later by complaints for falsifying public and commercial documents against 18 Legacy officers, employees, and agents

The third set was filed last Feb. 26 against De los Angeles and his cohorts again for falsifying public and commercial documents and for false statements against 18 known personalities of the Legacy group.

Named in the latest complaints were Mr. Celso G. De los Angeles, Jr; Mr. Alexis S. Petralba; Ms. Namnama D. Pasetes; Ms. Carolina G. Hiñola; Mr. Roy Hilario; Mr. Virgilio A. Odejar; lawyer Christine Antenor Cruz-Limpin; lawyers Norman Tiongson; Victoria “Binky” Noel; Mr. Arnel Sulquiano; Mr. Ronaldo Alix; Mr. Mike Basangan; and John Does and Jane Does.

More criminal charges, this time from the Senate, face Legacy officials along with the attachment of De los Angeles’ properties to cover the P1.4 billion premiums that his pre-need firm sold to its more than 50,000 plan holders.

Senate investigators are already considering this among their panel recommendations even as they have yet to hear the testimonies of the two former Legacy executives, Carol Jimeola and Nami Santos, who are expected to nail down De los Angeles, implicating as well a number of other personalities, including politicians, celebrities and officials from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Sen. Manuel “Mar” Roxas II, chairman of the Senate trade and commerce committee handling the probe on the collapse of Legacy, concerned government agencies that would be proven to have been remiss in their mandate, will be made to face administrative charges.

“We intend to file cases against De Los Angeles and Legacy, have his assets pay for whatever should be recovered by his (alleged) victims and not to his wishes,” he said yesterday in a radio interview over at dzBB.

Roxas was unsure whether De Los Angeles will attend today’s resumption of their proceedings to rebut whatever will be disclosed by Jimeola, Legacy president and Santos, who was the chief finance officer of Legacy Consolidated Plans Inc. as they stand as the latest witnesses in the ongoing inquiry.

Asked about the confirmation of De Los Angeles, the senator said they have sent him an invitation for attendance in their hearing.

“What is important is we put on record the sworn testimonies of these witnesses. Because these would be the basis for the cases to be filed by the SEC, the Bangko Sentral and other victims against Celso,” he said.

“Their testimonies will nail down Celso. This is like a thread. We will follow the length of the thread until we reach the bottom of the scam.

“These lies, this racket, this scam is no longer a secret. This is very extensive and more people are now coming out to expose what they know about it,” he added.

The Senate proceedings, he said, would be the proper venue for De Los Angeles to confront or confirm the witnesses’ testimonies.

“But for me, his presence is no longer necessary at this point because all he would do is to deny all the allegations against him. But he has been invited and it would be up to him if he would attend or not,” he said.

Both Jimeola and Santos, in coming out in the public last Friday, exposed De Los Angeles’ pyramiding scheme that duped investors into buying fictitious or unlisted pre-need plans and investment schemes in De Los Angeles’ Legacy Consolidated Inc., the 13 Legacy rural banks and the Legacy One Card company, among others, but would not provide specific details.

The Senate has provided security to the two former key officers of Legacy Group, who volunteered to testify despite fears for their lives due to the weight of the information and evidence they hold.

Besides calling for the filing of criminal charges against De los Angeles and his cohorts for syndicated estafa, the Senate is also closing in into the possibility of proposing amendments to the charters of the SEC and the BSP to strengthen their regulatory powers.

He reiterated the SEC should move fast to attach De los Angeles’ personal assets to prevent the Legacy owner from disposing them and using the proceeds for his personal use. He insisted proceeds from the sale of such assets should be used to augment the Legacy Consolidated Inc. trust fund and to pay for the P1.4 billion premiums it sold to its
more than 50,000 plan holders.

The witnesses of the Senate against De los Angeles asked for protection from the Senate, through Roxas, with them claiming to have received threatening messages in the mobile phones.

It still is not known whether Roxas’ witnesses are also the accused in the criminal cases filed by the BSP against the Legacy owner and officers.

De los Angeles, in an earlier hearing, denied accusations coming from witnesses. Others have come out in support of De los Angeles, claiming that the two witnesses who have come forward to testify against the Legacy owner were the guilty ones, as they signed the papers and checks.

The Legacy owner insisted that the BSP has been threatening the lower level employees to “testify “against him for the BSP to hae a case against him.

In a much earlier hearing, De los Angeles pointed to the collapse of his banks at the BSP “fixers” and a BSP official, whom he accused of extorting funds from him everytime. He named both officer and official, who De los Santos also said had a conflict of interest in rural bank ownership.

BSP deputy Gov. Nestor Espenilla later admitted that his family owned a rural bank, but that he was neither a shareholder nor a member of that rural bank’s board.

But Roxas claimed that the sworn statements that Hiñola and Santos would play a big role in his committee’s inquiry into the Legacy mess.

He vowed to get to the bottom of the alleged scam and said he will not stop doing so until all those who were scammed by the Legacy Group of companies would be compensatedm, through the sequestration of De Los Santos’ properties.