Court hands lending company execs jail term for faking bank document

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has secured the conviction of three company executives who had attempted to register their lending firm using fake bank documents.

In a statement over the weekend, the corporate watchdog said the Pasay Metropolitan Trial Court Branch 47 found Jelyn Orillo Borja, Uldarico Sahay and Jessie Basarte Borja “guilty beyond reasonable doubt” for violating a provision of the Revised Penal Code (RPC) that called for penalties for the falsification of public documents by a private individual.

Each were sentenced up to two years and six months imprisonment alongside a P100,000 fine, according to the SEC, which cited the court decision dated April 5.

The regulator earlier filed the criminal case against officials of Dr Verma Lending after discovering they submitted in 2017 a fake bank certificate in the amount of P1 million.

The document is a requirement under the Lending Company Regulation Act (LCRA), which prescribes a minimum paid-up capital of P1 million for lending companies.

The SEC found that the bank certificate was falsified after verifying the matter with the issuing bank.

The SEC said Article 172, Paragraph 1 of the RPC provides that “any private individual who commits falsifications in any public or official document or letter of exchange or any other kind of commercial document shall incur a penalty of two years, four months and one day up to six years.”

“[K]nowing fully well that the bank certificate is a requirement and that [Dr Verma Lending] does not have the money to put up the same, their reliance on fixers to procure such certification necessarily negates their excuse or purported lack of knowledge over the falsification of the same, thereby making them liable for the act,” according to the court decision.

Last March, the regulator also saw the prosecution of officers of Phil86 Gurunanak Lending and Trading Corp. over the same violation. Lending company officials of Naurasidhu55 and X-CEE789 Lending and Trading, Inc. were also convicted under the LCRA.

“The SEC remains vigilant over the registration and operations of lending and financing companies, as part of the government-initiated crackdown against illegal lenders engaged in a ‘5-6’ scheme and other usurious practices since 2016,” the corporate regulator said.

The SEC, through the Corporate Governance and Finance Department, has already revoked the primary registration of a total of 2,084 lending companies for noncompliance with the LCRA. It also revoked the secondary license of 39 lending companies due to various violations of SEC rules and regulations.

—Miguel R. Camus INQ

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