The Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC) on Friday, Aug. 30 said the ball is on AMA Rural Bank of Mandaluyong Inc.’s (AMA Bank) court on the matter of funds turnover and is urging the rural bank to respond to its request for a meeting to resolve this.
The pending PDIC meeting with AMA Bank will include the designated Sheriff of the Court of Appeals (CA), it said in a statement.
“As of date, the PDIC is still awaiting response from AMA Bank on its request for a meeting together with the designated Sheriff of the Court of Appeals (CA), to facilitate the turnover of the funds,” said PDIC.
PDIC said that after it received the Supreme Court (SC) Resolution which was dated May 28, 2024, it wrote to AMA Bank on July 30, 2024 and asked for a meeting with the rural bank to “discuss the full turnover of the cash”.
At this point, with the pending meeting, PDIC advised “all the creditors and depositors” to “directly communicate with AMA Bank.”
In the PDIC statement, it noted that as of May 24, 2023, it has already prepared a Landbank Manager’s Check for the total amount of funds as well as interest earned, net of expenses, and “was ready to turn over the funds to AMA Bank.”
“The PDIC was, however, constrained to suspend the turnover pursuant to the Resolutions of the CA dated 5 July 2023 and 6 February 2024 that deferred the execution of the CA Decision dated 7 September 2020, as judicial courtesy to the Supreme Court (SC), upon which the issue of AMA Bank's closure was pending at that time,” said PDIC.
It added that “earlier, based on agreed-upon protocols, the PDIC completed the turnover of documents, records, and the branches to AMA Bank as of 13 July 2023 in the presence of the CA-designated Sheriff upon the PDIC's receipt of the 1 March 2023 Resolution of the SC.”
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) in a circular letter dated Nov. 7, 2019, prohibited AMA Bank from doing business in the Philippines and designated PDIC as receiver with orders to liquidate and take over the rural bank. Under the law, the PDIC has the sole authority to manage and administer closed banks.
On Jan. 24, 2020, the CA Third Division issued a writ of preliminary injunction that disallowed the BSP and the PDIC from the liquidation of AMA Bank.
The latest legal move is the recent SC resolution to restore the rural bank into full operating mode.
As of Friday, the BSP has yet to issue its own statement with regards to the AMA Bank reopening.