Tuesday, December 23, 2008 Roperos: Debased public trust By Godofredo M. Roperos Politics Also
WHEN I was still a kid in knee pants, I recall that my late grandfather Moises who reached high school level in his education, was not trustful enough to deposit his money in banks. He said he did not believe in leaving his money in the care of other people, even if he was assured something would be added to it as interest annually. In those days, interests were talked about in annual terms not like now when some banks offer not just monthly interests, but even daily. My grandfather never did enjoy a bank account.
When I was already in college, I realized my grandfather had a very conservative, even distrustful, view of our banking system. It seemed then that he was more at home keeping his money in their old trunk or in a “piggy bank” on the bamboo wall of their kitchen where he dropped as often as he can his surplus coins from his sale of his tobacco and vegetable products. The paper bills he kept in their wooden trunk. I knew because he would get from the trunk the money he bet on his fighting cocks on Sunday afternoons.
But this is not about my grandfather’s money-saving habits during his time at the turn of the 19th century. This is about the trouble our banking system in Cebu is experiencing now. I am quite apprehensive about the effect this current situation would have upon the people whose confidence in our banks have only been won over in recent years. I am sure that with the sudden unannounced declaration of banking holiday by four rural banks in Cebu, the people’s trust in the industry should be fairly shaken, and saddled with regrets.
What had been won with difficulty and hard work over years of patient persuasion on the reliability of the banks may just be lost in a wink of the eye. How will you make our average or marginal depositors from the countryside believe that the current difficulties of our rural banks is temporary or at best, an inevitable effect of the global economic slowdown, and not the fault of our bank managers or the result of mismanagement? What really should worry our leaders is the fact that the depositors hard hit are the small ones.
It is shame that those who have their small savings from small businesses in the towns who placed their cash in savings deposits in rural banks, should be the ones caught in the financial trap while those depositors who have deposited their cash in bigger financial institutions are able to go untouched by the dilemma. What really should be done at this point should be to take immediate action to aid the “holidaying” rural banks, and get them to have the local banks open their windows to their depositors again.
I hope that the financial activities of cooperatives in the countryside have not been similarly affected by the current problems affecting the rural banks, or the banking industry of the country, as a whole. I hope the four rural banks that have ceased operation are isolated cases. The Bangko Sentral has not come out yet with its prognosis of the four banks’ illness.
It is important the anxiety and fear of their depositors would be allayed. After all, the hard-earned money they deposited could be their life’s savings.
