Ex-bank employee, dad sued for qualified theft

TEN counts of qualified theft and six counts of simple theft were filed against a former bank employee and his father for alleged illegal transfer of several checks payable to the bank and depositing these to their account.

Paul Andrew A. Chua Hua stands accused of unlawfully taking and transferring bank funds amounting to P13,958,740.50 from one account to his father Santos Chua Hua’s account.

In a resolution, Prosecutor Marte Melchor Velasco charged Paul with 10 counts of qualified theft after he deposited and transferred the bank funds with the amount of P3,000,000, P118,888.43, P24,818.15, P24,818.15, P168,215.85, P3,000,000, P5,593,971.50, P424,028.41, P982,000 and P622,000 to Santos’ account.

Paul is a former sales officer of East West Banking Corporation of Davao Lanang branch who was employed since 2004 until his termination in February this year.

On the other hand, Velasco charged Santos with six counts of simple theft after his son deposited the amounts of P118,888.43, P24,818.15, P24,818.15, P168,215.85, P424,028.41 and P982,000 into his account.

According to Annabelle M. Piatos, the bank’s branch bead, Santos maintains a deposit account in their branch, which is the subject of the complaint filed against the two.

She said Paul was using his father’s account in depositing or transferring the bank’s money.

Velasco also found probable cause to hold the young Chua Hua liable for two counts of falsification of commercial documents for falsifying two copies of a lost Certificate of Time Deposit.

Records showed that Paul started to do his illegal acts from May 18, 2010 until Januray 27 this year.

Piatos said they discovered the fraud through their customer service assistant who saw Paul tampering the passbook of a client.

The employee told her that Paul covered a portion of a client’s passbook with a piece of paper for printing, resulting that only a part of an entry would be printed and particular transactions would not reflect on the updated passbook.

She immediately conducted interviews with the other bank employees and found out that Paul “committed serious irregularities” in their branch.

Piatos said she met with the accused and aired her disappointment to the latter’s betrayal of the bank’s trust and confidence given upon him.

She said the respondent “unexpectedly apologized” for his wrongdoings and even handed a letter admitting to have transferred funds from one account to another amounting to more or less P43,000,000 for his own benefit and use on February 8.

The City Prosecutor’s Office (CPO) recommended no bail to the four qualified theft cases filed against Paul.

Meanwhile, Santos filed an urgent motion to suspend proceedings and to hold in abeyance the issuance of a warrant of arrest on June 15.

Santos, in his motion, said he was never given the opportunity to file his counter-affidavit because he was not able to receive anything from the CPO and he was able to know about the complaints upon receiving the resolution of the case on June 14.

He also said that he has no knowledge of the whereabouts of his son as he last saw him sometime in February.

He asked the court to suspend the proceedings until his motion for reinvestigation is decided.

He said he is already 70 years old thus, asking the court to hold in abeyance the issuance of the arrest warrant.

The court scheduled the hearing of their motion next month. (ANC)