THE Negros Cooperative Bank (NCB) is asking time from the Provincial Government to move out from the Provincial Lagoon and Park.
"We are willing to move out from the Provincial Lagoon and Park," Phoebe Tongson, manager of the Negros Cooperative Bank, said on Monday, November 4.
Tongson said the board of the bank is willing to transfer office but they still have to look for an accessible location to transfer, make a new vault, and comply with the requirements of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP).
The coop bank manager’s reaction came after Negros Occidental Governor Eugenio Jose Lacson said the coop bank should start looking for a new place to move to.
Last week, the Provincial Board approved a resolution authorizing Lacson to demand the NCB to vacate and terminate the deed of usufruct between the Provincial Government and the cooperative bank on the use of the 526-square meter lot located inside the Capitol Park and Lagoon.
Board Member Andrew Montelibano, author of the resolution, said the bank had not paid its water and electricity bills to the provincial government for 12 years already.
Montelibano said NCB had been using the property for free, but there was a breach of contract and conflict of interest.
Lacson said the Provincial Government will formally send a letter to the bank.
"I'm sure they will make an appeal. I am willing to listen to them," the governor said.
He said what is clear is that the coop bank violated certain terms of the contract at the expense of the province.
The NCB is supported by 47 cooperatives all over Negros Occidental, Tongson said.
"The support includes the use of property and the utilities like water and electricity," she said.
She added that since the deed of usufruct was signed until this year, "nobody from the Provincial Government came to us and say that we now have to pay for our own electrical power."
"When the new deed of usufruct was signed between the provincial government and the bank in 2017, former governor Alfredo Marañon Jr. told us that when you will be moved to a new location at the new building beside the National Bureau of Investigation, you will have to pay rentals, water and power," Tongson said.
She added that the bank directors were "willing to sit down with the Capitol officials to clear all issues."
"When the issue broke out in the media some of our depositors and stockholders called us and said they were concerned about the status of the bank. But when we assured them that we are stable, they were relieved," she said.
Tongson also assured the bank's stakeholders that "the NCB as a bank is stable. The current issue is part of the challenge but our operations is stable."
In an earlier interview, Nestor Bayona, president and chair of NCB, said the bank was created to provide cooperatives easier access to credit at lower interest.
"All members of the Board are representing our cooperatives and serve pro bono. All profits of the bank goes to the 47 member-coops spread all over the province from San Carlos to Sipalay cities comprising about 25,000 cooperators who are farmers, teachers, government employees, and ordinary cooperators who stand to lose if the bank loses," he said.
As a project of the province, Bayona said, the NCB "is asking our honorable Sangguniang Panlalawigan, the vice governor and governor to treat NCB with kinder consideration to safeguard the confidence of our clients."