Borlongan seeks SC help

Former Urban Bank president Teodoro Borlongan asked the Supreme Court (SC) recently to reconsider its recent resolution dismissing his petition against the Ombudsman and several Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) officials.

In a petition for certiorari filed last in September, Borlongan assailed the Ombudsman’s grave abuse of discretion in dismissing his criminal complaint that charged BSP officials of falsifying the BSP-SES (Supervision and Examination) reports that served as bases for the closure of Urban Bank Inc. (UBI), Urbancorp Development Bank (UDB) and Urbancorp Investments Inc. (UII) in April 26, 2000.

Last Oct. 13, the SC denied Borlongan’s petition.

In his motion for reconsideration, Borlongan questioned the bases cited by the SC in its resolution.

He claims that the SC assumed that the Ombudsman determined probable cause on the basis of his findings which the SC ruled were essentially factual in nature.

Borlongan claims in a statement that the Ombudsman "did not make and refused to make any findings of fact."

"The SC therefore cannot sustain the Ombudsman’s factual findings that he never made in the first place," he added.

The Ombudsman, he claims, issued the assailed resolution dismissing the complaint, without discussion of the evidence nor opportunity to file his reply to refute respondents‚ statements in their counter-affidavits. The Ombudsman then issued the assailed order denying Borlongan‚s motion for reconsideration.

Borlongan also pointed out in his statement that the SC "erred with the Ombudsman in wrongly concluding that the right to question the action of BSP officials belongs only to the majority stockholders of the closed bank under Section 30, R.A. 7653 New Central Bank Act."

He claims that the questioned BSP-SES reports were received five months after Urban‚s closure.

"Only upon written demand by Borlongan’s counsel, BSP belatedly furnished him on 20 September and 11 October 2000 the SES reports on UBI, UDB and UII.

All three reports, which were dated 26 April 2000, contained findings, which were not discussed nor disclosed to the institutions, in flagrant violation of the Central Bank Manual of Examination Procedures.

"On 8 November 2000, he filed his complaint before the Ombudsman, alleging that the findings in the three reports were falsified and untrue, and that the reports had been altered and ante-dated," he said in the statement.