Greetings to the Office of the President,

Dear Sir/madam:

We thought you should know why we, OFWs and expats living here have lost our trust in the Philippine banking system.  We, the OFWs, arenow looking on depositing our hard-earned monies to offshore banks.
We, the expats, also recommend to new arrivals of expats to leave their money in their home countries and just bring in day to day living expenses.

We are one of the numerous numbers of OFWs and expats that mistakenly believed the posted information at local banks that deposits were
covered by PDIC, Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp, and saw their posted goal on their web page that they strive to be a “World Class Deposit Insurance Corp”.

In practice, however, they don’t even come close to world class and probably not even second class.

We, as many OFWs and expats, had the misfortune of depositing large sums of money in the Legacy banks, as did our wives or husbands, mothers and children for their education and future.   It has been ten
months since the banks were closed and more than six months since we filed claims, yet we have not heard one word from PDIC except to say,
if you call, they are working on the claims.

Some have received demands for additional proof of ownership of deposits; proof that many of us attempted to provide at the time the claims were filed but refused by PDIC, who now, after six months of procrastination, demands it under threat of denial of claims.  We see these actions as nothing more than deliberate delaying tactics. Those that were asked for additional information more than three months ago are still waiting for checks. However, the majority of us haven’t heard anything yet.

We have been condemned, in the newspapers, by PDIC for being stupid and depositing in a bank system that they said we should have known better than to use.  We have been advised that we are personally
responsible to insure that seven separate documents are on file with any bank we use, for each transaction, or face denial of PDIC claims.
When we ask bank managers if we can verify monthly that these documents are present on our accounts, they laugh at us and say that PDIC doesn’t know what they are talking about and the documents are
checked by BSP and PDIC audits.  We are also told by PDIC that if bank documents are missing, our claim will be denied, which in essence makes us responsible for the management of any bank we deposit in.

PDIC claims that the closing of the Legacy banks overwhelmed them and
they are not prepared to handle claim volumes of that size. One has to wonder what would happen if PNB or BPI or BDO was closed, how long it would take? Maybe ten years to get paid? In reality, we believe we
know the reason. PDIC is broke. We know they owe BSP billions more than they claim to have and we also know that most of their funds are tied up in propping up larger commercial banks; UCPB comes to mind.

Some of us (expats) had money in a bank in the U.S. that closed while we were living here. Seventy-two hours after the bank closed, we were
able to withdraw our money via the internet.

Our experience with PDIC – wait three months and have to travel hundreds of kilometers to pick up a form and be given a specific day and time to travel hundreds of kilometers again to simply turn in the
completed claim form. Be required to give up the original CTD, which wasn’t previously required, only to be told months later that it was a mistake and we could have given them copies which at the time they
refused. Then be told by PDIC staff that everything was fine and we would see results after 30 days, at the end of April 2009. Of course that was not true, and a new deadline of the end of June and then mid July and then the end of August, and now the end of
October. Do you think anyone believes anything they say at this point?

Which example do you think represents “World Class Deposit Insurance”?
Wonder why nobody believes PDIC’s claim of “World Class Deposit
Insurance”?

We belong to a group of Legacy depositors that came together in self defense against PDIC attacks on legitimate depositors. As a group (called DEADBOL), we haven’t seen any significant number paid in the
ten months since closing. Some of us have been told by our friends to expect to wait two years as that has been their past experience with PDIC.  As per PDIC charter, they are mandated by law to pay within 6
months from date of filing – that is the end of October.

We appeal to you, Mrs. President, to intervene with PDIC.   We have been suffering too long already waiting for our hard-earned monies.
Please help us!

Thank you so much for your time and we look forward to your kind assistance.