MikeLigalig.com

Bangs in Banks
By Atty. Chic Baluma
September 3, 2006, The Bohol Standard

Dear fellow Boholanos, how do you choose your bank?

Of course, its general standing in the banking community, whether it is No. 1 in liquidity of assets, a minimum of liabilities, its performance report which is periodically reported, if you can have a grasp and can understand, unless financially massaged counts.

But, just to be practical how to make a choice for your bank, what will you consider?

When the manager or any of its top-ranking official gambles, a regular icon in the cockpit, certified habitué in the mahjong joints, a daily double player in the mid-day and evening Lotto game, beware!

When the manager or his/her subordinates is in the vicious circle- a womanizer, one-lady with good manners but with bad habits, a flirt to the machos, or in a macho to macho matching sidestrips, beware!

When the manager or any of its top-rank employees himself is in the money market, is in the lending business through a dummy or has an extra-business in addition to his bank employment, beware!

When the manager or his/her subordinates flashes the latest models of the vehicles, the fashion jewelries, the sporty vehicles, has that palatial homes or mansions, beware!

When the manager or any of his/her staff does frequent travels abroad, the vacation trips, beware!

If the public can demand from government officials a lifestyle check, the bank depositors are also entitled to a lifestyle check on the bankers.

There ought to be a pubic disclosure of financial statements, assets and liabilities of bankers. Who knows that the latest van acquired by a top-rank official of your bank is from you, the depositor’s money deposited in the bank?

It might be an exaggeration to claim that a bank manager receives something like P75,000 to P100,000 monthly net pay. If the guess is right, well and good. But how about the middle managers, the rank and file? It could be around P30,000 to P50,000 a month. If the guess is still right, still well and good! But what is the monthly pay with the corresponding vanity and standards to cope to look and feel like one who is a banker? For all you know, our friends in the banking circles may pardon us, the tellers of banks in Makati, Quezon City and in Metro Manila doubles as escorts for Mr. Big Shot, Mr. Big Time Mr. DOM if not are also guest relations ornaments (GRO’s) during the night, the men tellers are also in gay bars, macho clubs waiting for the lousy, old merry widows and femme fatale of yesteryears! The situation only illustrates one thing that in the banking community, the pay has to be augmented just like our OCW nurses in the United States who work in more than one hospitals to earn more.

Can a depositor demand from a bank damages he suffers from the actuations, acts of negligence of its agents?

The banks are engaged in a business impressed with public interest and it is its duty to protect in return its many clients and depositors who transact business with it. Whatever rhetorics bank management may interpose, it cannot validly extricate itself from the wrongdoings of the men the management has employed to transact with its clients.

Banks are liable to third persons where the representation is made in the course of its business by an agent acting within the general scope of his authority even though the agent is secretly abusing his authority and attempting to perpetuate a fraud or has defrauded bank clients or some other persons for his own personal benefit.

The banking business does not begin and end with it receiving the deposit, granting interests to the money deposited and allowing the withdrawals from the deposits of its clients. The public interest it has vowed to keep are stated in no mean terms in its purposes and objectives, in its articles of incorporation. Banking institutions has the obligation to see to it that all funds invested with it are properly accounted for and duly recorded in its ledgers. A bank is liable for the wrongful acts of its officers done in the interests of the bank or in the course of the dealings of its personnel in the discharge of their banking duties. A depositor must be on watch of entries in the passbook which are not in its computers. A typewritten entry in the passbooks are suspicious.

When your bank had caused you mental anguish, anxiety, moral shock, physical suffering, wounded feelings or similar injuries because the money you entrusted to it, your hard earned money dwindled even you have not done any transaction to cause such diminishing effect, then as a depositor, one has the right of action. The degree of diligence required from banking institutions is more than that of a good father of a family. The fiduciary nature of the relation between a bank and its depositors require the banks its bounden duty to treat the accounts of its clients with its highest degree of care. Any bank short of this duty, its banking days become numbered. Shortly, the depositors will run to the bank, withdraw their deposits, close their accounts, create a bank run and cause a bank holiday. Whether a depositor’s account consists only of a few hundred pesos or of million pesos, the depositors expect the banks and the bankers to be men of trust and honesty and not demi-gods, treating the depositors and their money deposits with fidelity, with meticulous care. Short of this, the depositors can run, depositors run to the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas which is charged with the supervision over the operations of banks and exercise over them their regulatory powers. Mr. Depositors, is it Run Samson Run?

Linkback: https://tubagbohol.mikeligalig.com/index.php?topic=82954.0