Amicable settlement reached over lending controversy
INTERESTS ON LOANS WAIVED
AN out of court settlement for some 300 borrowers who reported to the Dagupan City government to have been allegedly deceived by a lending company looms after the latter agreed to forego the collection of compounded interests on the defaulted loans.
Representatives of the lending company SS Marketing Inc (SSMI) and the borrowers who allegedly defaulted in their payments will meet again on March 30 at the office of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in Dagupan to validate amounts due the company and by whom.
This was bared by Councilor Jose Tamayo who said that in the first meeting of the two groups at the NBI office, it was already agreed that the borrowers will pay only the principal of their loans minus the interests based on a statement of account of each individual borrower to be prepared by SSMI.
Tamayo, a lawyer, is representing the borrowers, all residents of Sitios Bagong Barrio, Sabangan, Sapang Bato and Tondaligan in Bonuan Gueset, in a complaint filed against SSMI and their officers before the NBI.
The borrowers complained that the lending company were forcing them to pay outstanding accounts that contained interests over a 40-day period that were already bigger than the principal amounts loaned.
Some of the defaulting borrowers were already charged before a trial court in Talavera, Nueva Ecija by SSMI. Tamayo said the cases can only be resolved by a full payment of the principal loan by the borrowers.
Tamayo said the representatives of SSMI, led by Santiago Maligson Jr., that operated in the city could not identify the persons behind the company, particularly the financiers or investors, hence only the SSMI employees could be charged.
The borrowers had suspected that one of the investors in the SSMI is an NBI official because the SSMI collectors were always accompanied by NBI agents who threatened the borrowers of incarceration if they continued to default in their payments.
Meanwhile, the One-Stop Business Center has certified that SSMI has no business registration in Dagupan and neither has it a business clearance issued by the Barangay Captain of Bonuan Gueset where it maintains a branch office.
Lawyer Roy Laforteza, assistant city legal officer of Dagupan, also said that the company also did not apply for business name registration with the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) which is a standard requirement for any business operating in the Philippines.
A closure order against SSMI is now being prepared by the city government. (Leonardo Micua)
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