Ducky Paredes

“These NGOs told Gloria Arroyo: ‘We believe that one impediment in your housing program for the poor is Mr. Celso de los Angeles.’”

by Ducky Paredes

We have a letter: “I am an OFW and am one of those victims by the Legacy Consolidated Plans. True to your word that it is more painful for me to accept the reality that my hard earned dreams, college plans, for my children has been taken away and turned into a nightmare.
“Actually, I am a holder of 3 paid Plans for my 3 children which were originally offered to me by a former high school adviser sometime in 1989 – a person which I can not say no at that time. Fortunately, my eldest daughter was able to use her “plan” during her college time from 2000 to 2004. When she graduated in 2004, we filed a claim for their “special service “– refund of the amount paid to a plan plus interest, but our claim received an unending promises that the payment still in process. To date, no payment has been received.
“In 2007, we filed a claim too for my second daughter’s “plan” for her college education but no single payment was received. Luckily, I am still employed and am able to support her studies.
“The third plan is for my son who is only 12 years old now and this cause me to worry much. I am 53 years old now and it is not realistic to think that I could still be competitive to work in 6 to 9 years time for the college education of my son. I do not know how I am going to deal with this.
“Scams like these should be attended with high priority by the government and the culprits should be put to trial and pay their wrongdoings. Fooling people and denying their children to attend and acquire college education is tantamount to robbing their dreams to live a better and decent life. Only the crook and non God fearing man can do this thievery to others.
“I admire person like you who has the conscience, morality and guts to expose the evil doings of persons regardless of their status in life and their influence in the society. May your tribe increase in number.” –Rodrigo Gambil (Riyadh, Saudi Arabia)
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The person behind Legacy is Celso de los Angeles. Who he? At present, he is the mayor of Sto. Domingo, Albay. It is beyond me why the people of Santo Domingo would elect a man who had last ran for mayor in Marikina City, who in the 1980s was barred by the Bangko Sentral from having anything to do with rural banks after three RBs under his management collapsed due to unsound banking practices and who had a public quarrel over P8 million worth of jewelry that he gave TV talent Regine Tolentino that he wanted back when she did not give in to his desires.
Clearly, Celso, an Ateneo graduate who was the classmate of my youngest brother knows how to pull the wool over people’s eyes.
In September 2004, De los Angeles was appointed by his dear friend Vice President Noli de Castro as chairman of the National Home Mortgage Corporation (NHMFC). De los Angeles didn’t last a year in office. He went on sick leave in July 2005 and never went back.
According to NGOs in the housing sector, the few months that de los Angeles headed the agency was a time of “flagrant and brazen graft and corruption” at the NHMFC. These NGOs told Gloria Arroyo: “We believe that one impediment in your housing program for the poor is Mr. Celso de los Angeles.”
NGOs working in the area of Community Mortgage Program (CMP), took out a paid print advertisement addressed to President Arroyo on July 1, 2005 that stated: “We urge you to remove him from office because he is not morally fit to be in government.”
One has to wonder how Noli de Castro could appoint a person identified by Chavit Singson as a jueteng operator in Estrada’s impeachment trial and how he passed muster with Gloria Arroyo’s talent search committee.
The ban on having any dealings with RBs apparently did not stop Celso. This year, 10 rural banks (in Bicol, Luzon and Visayas) failed. All were connected to the Legacy group of Celso de los Angeles, who was banned from the RB business by the BSP. Apparently, these RB’s funds were being siphoned by Celso’s Legacy companies.
Now, Legacy has closed shop; the dream of people like OFW Rodrigo Gambil for their children being able to afford school has evaporated.
The question has to be why people like Celso de los Angeles can operate in supposedly regulated industries such as pre-need companies and rural banks. Where is enforcement when one needs it? How could someone already banned by the BSP end up controlling ten rural banks? How can a scam-master go into the pre-need business? Who is supposed to be enforcing the rules? Are the regulators banned from looking at the character and rap sheets of persons offering insurance plans to the public?
My one comment on pre-need plans is why the investor in these plans are not given the same protection as bank depositors who have a Philippine Deposit Insurance Corporation (PDIC) that protects their deposits in banks up to P250,000 which is being upgraded to P500,000?
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On turning 70: If in April 2008, even Superman turned 70, so will we all. Is one any wiser because he has reached 70? I doubt it. I feel no different. I am not more patient or less passionate about the things that matter. I am also not any wiser. A part of greater wisdom is the realization that eventually one must leave this earth and when one turns 70, one’s departure schedule seems to have moved nearer.
When I was much younger I looked up to older folk thinking that they must have the wisdom of the ages from having lived so long. I now know that this is not necessarily so. The stories about the good old days have become one’s stories and one does not remember those days as necessarily especially good but only as days from one’s past. And sometimes one even forgets a story or two from those times. Or a name or a place. This sometimes gets in the way of a retelling. One can be old and still so foolish.
What must never diminish is one’s sense of humor. How dreary and oppressive life becomes without an appreciation of the frailties of the human condition and the natural humor even in just being alive. Another is one’s love for his family. I have a wife, a daughter, three sons, three grandsons and a daughter-in-law. Each one is a special blessing; and so are my nine siblings and true friends.

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hvp 01.25.09)