STATE OF TRUST FUNDS UNKNOWN, CHIZ BLASTS SEC, BSP

Senator Chiz Escudero on Monday bewailed the failure of the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to monitor the current state of the trust funds intended to cover the needs of pre-need planholders.

"SEC has been given the ample power of regulation among pre-need firms. It is there to watch over these trust funds. But they seem to do nothing to protect the investing public. They simply watch as these trust funds dissolve into thin air just like the incestuous relationship of the Legacy Group and its bank subsidiaries," Escudero, chair of the Senate Committee on Banks, Financial Institutions, and Currencies, told reporters.

He said the SEC showed its incompetence when they could not give categorical answers as to how much will Legacy plan holders get out of its trust fund.

"This is absurd and disconcerting. We put SEC there to preserve and strengthen the investor's interest but they look like they protect more pre-need companies' interest which is to earn," Escudero said.

The senator suggested that the SEC knew about the brewing problems in the Legacy Group since 2004.

"We are asking SEC to furnish us a copy of the minutes of their business forum to check if the boiling pre-need problems then were already part of their discussed agenda," said

Escudero.

He also expressed concern about the allegations of extortion raised by Celso delos Angeles against the Bangko Sentral, saying that this is a very serious charge that the BSP should squarely address.

'If there is no truth to it, BSP should categorically express so, but if this is true, they should address it head on and sack those who need to be sacked," Escudero stressed.

As co-chairman of the senate inquiry on the problems of pre-need companies, he vowed to look deeper, with dispatch, into the manner by which the prevailing rules on the registration and sale of pre-need plans under the securities regulation code are implemented.

"We will address the problems responsible for the closure and mess in pre-need companies. We need to take a closer look at our regulating bodies and see if rules are executed for the protection of the investing public. It's high time that the laws of securities are properly implemented in this country," Escudero said.