RCBC bank manager only a scapegoat, lawyer says

The lawyer of RCBC bank manager Maia Santos Deguito, the bank officer who is being linked to a multi-million-dollar money laundering scheme, said his client was only a scapegoat in the case.

Topacio said the manager of RCBC's Jupiter Street branch in Makati could not have pulled off the huge money laundering scheme without the knowledge of higher ranking bank officers.

He added that Deguito's track record showed that she was an excellent bank officer.

Topacio said she was even pirated from East-West Bank.

The lawyer said his client would reveal everything that she knows when she attends the Senate hearing on the money laundering case next week.

The RCBC branch manager allegedly confided with businessman William Go that she opened "fictitious" accounts – dollar and peso – at the RCBC branch on Jupiter Street on February 23, 2016.

The accounts were made under Go's brokerage firm Centurytex Trading.

She then offered him P10 million to go along with the scheme, which prompted the businessman to have his lawyer Ramon S. Esguerra consult with RCBC.

Because of the accounts under his company's name, Go  was earlier implicated in the money laundering scheme.

Esguerra said Friday that his client never consented to open nor had knowledge of these accounts, which were allegedly used as storing ground by hackers for the aforementioned amount.

RCBC president Lorenzo Tan on Friday issued a statement denying that he had any involvement in the alleged money laundering case.

"Ms. Maia Deguito’s allegations that I played a role in the opening and subsequent use of the subjects accounts are an outright lie. I do not know her personally, which raises the question: how can a branch manager work with a bank president who does not know her on branch level matters?" Tan said.

"As president of RCBC, I do not engage myself in the opening of accounts, knowing the client and his source of income among other things as required by government rules, and crediting and debiting funds," he added. -NB, GMA News