Despite a pending plunder complaint against Philippine Stock Exchange (PSE) director and STI Chairman Eusebio Tanco, the PSE’s Nomination and Elections Committee said he can seek reelection during the bourse’s annual stockholders meeting on May 7.
PSE President Hans Sicat confirmed that Tanco is indeed qualified to run notwithstanding money laundering allegations hurled against him by Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV and a pending plunder complaint before the Office of the Ombudsman.
Roel Refran, PSE chief operating officer said the PSE’s nominations and elections committee evaluates all allegations against any nominee following rules and guidelines approved by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) before making the appropriate ruling.
Based on the acceptance sheet of PSE’s nomination form, a nominee for PSE director must certify that he is not the subject or convicted of a case involving any of 12 listed offenses that could impair his ability to carry out his duties as one of the gatekeepers of the capital markets.
While Refran declined to comment on the specific status of Tanco, he simply stated that the PSE has already responded to Trillanes’s queries. “We have responded to Senator Trillanes’s queries,” he said.
Sicat likewise said earlier that the PSE found no basis in Trillanes’ allegations against the businessman. “After a careful consideration of the circumstances, we saw no merit in the allegations,” the PSE president said.
Trillanes recently wrote to the PSE, the Securities and Exchange Commission, the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Anti-Money Laundering Council asking them to investigate respondents in what he dubbed as the “University of Makati-College of Nursing Scam.”
“I would like to respectively request the Honorable SEC and PSE to look into and or investigate possible violations of the laws, rules and regulations administered by your respective institutions, which may have been committed by the perpetrators in the course of the operation of their nefarious scheme,” Trillanes said in his letter.
Aside from Tanco, Trillanes named former Makati City Mayor and now Vice President Jejomar Binay, former Makati City Mayor Jejomar Erwin Binay Jr., and University of Makati President Tomas Lopez. He also named STI President Monico Jacob, Annabelle Borromeo and Dr. Jack Arroyo Jr., a nephew of Sen. Joker Arroyo.
While the PSE has cleared Tanco, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) is conducting its own probe while SEC Chairman Teresita Herbosa said the Commission would investigate matters under SEC’s jurisdiction.
As such, SEC would look into laws violated by Tanco and his company, if any and if there is basis for Trillanes’s call to look into the moral fitness of Tanco as a director of the PSE and as head of a publicly listed company.