The poor mayor of Sto. Domingo
The fourth-class municipality of Sto. Domingo, once known as Lib-og, has a population of 30,711 people in 5,390 households. The town claims the honor of being home to the composer of the “Sarung Banggi,” the best-known song in the Bikol language. There are 3,851 hectares of agricultural land and 17 resorts (including J & D Beach Haus and the Costa Palmera). This “progressive town,” as its official website calls it, is also the home of Mayor Celso G. de los Angeles.
“Honorable Celso de los Angeles is not a traditional politician,” his profile in the Sto. Domingo website says proudly. There is “a special reason” why Mayor De los Angeles ran for the leadership in the municipality of Sto. Domingo.
The reason, his “State of Sto. Domingo Address” claims, is his “strong desire to serve” and “uplift the town.” Not a particularly revolutionary reason, of course, as it is after all the single important requirement for anyone running for public office, but De los Angeles should not be faulted for cliché. An ability to string clichés into quotable sound bites is the second prerequisite for political governance.
The mayor of Sto. Domingo had the misfortune to be exposed as a young boy “to the grave concerns of poverty and calamity,” the “two aspects in life that everyone abhors.” He believes poverty and calamity can be avoided. It is difficult to imagine how this genial smiling gentleman with the round cheeks and several chins believes he can save Albay from the constant natural calamities that plague the province. He was more successful in waging war against that other pernicious evil: poverty. Perhaps it was the abhorrence of poverty (acquired perhaps in Ateneo de Manila exposure trips) that made this great-grandson of Marikina shoe magnate Mayor Laureano “Kapitan Moy” Guevara surround himself with all things great and beautiful—including a P57-million Alabang home, a Cebu mansion with an artificial fountain, a yacht christened MV Legacy (now the Sto. Domingo) now moored at the Manila Yacht Club, a half-million-peso ATV, a Benz Silver S Class, a Benz Black S Class, a Porsche Boxter, and a Benz SLK, each worth anything between a million pesos to P3 million.
The long-suffering founder and chair emeritus of the Legacy Group of Companies, whose “aggressive marketing methods” had 13 undercapitalized banks (representing less than 1 percent of the country’s 1,359 rural banks) attracting what amounted to 12 percent of the rural banking system’s P116.5 billion in deposits, was named by former Ilocos Sur Gov. Luis “Chavit” Singson in August 2002 as among former President Joseph Estrada’s many “jueteng” collectors. De los Angeles, said Singson, was the official bagman for the province of Ilocos Norte. In 2004, he was appointed chair of the National Home Mortgage Corp., and in July 2005, barely 10 months since his appointment, he was accused by non-government organizations of “flagrant and brazen graft and corruption.” In a print ad, the groups claimed he was “not morally fit to be in government.”
The collapse of the Legacy Group—Legacy Consolidated Plans Inc., Scholarship Plan Philippines Inc. and All Asia Plans Corp.—and the closure of the 13 Legacy rural banks worth a combined P14.03 billion in insured deposits in 132,642 bank accounts have devastated thousands who were seduced by Legacy’s double-your-money promises. In Mindanao, some 700 planholders intend to sue the company’s officials for estafa and push for its dissolution to satisfy outstanding claims. Mostly retired schoolteachers and policemen, from Davao, General Santos City, and Agusan del Sur, the claimants say that they were not even issued receipts for the money they entrusted to the company. They were instead given post-dated checks as a promise that the company would be on time on its commitment to pay claims. Many sold land to invest. Many banked on the payoff to cover their children’s education.
The Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas found that the rural banks had engaged in unsafe and unsound practices. BSP Deputy Governor Nestor Espenilla called the De los Angeles empire “an organized syndicate that from day one was created to exploit human nature and weak links in the legal, regulatory and enforcement framework of our banking and financial system.” The entire Legacy pyramid was built, said Espenilla, on gimmicks and dubious transactions, a grab bag of dirty tricks that included covert takeovers of rural banks to make them into “deposit-gathering zombies.” The Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. said the offers included cars as part of incentive packages. Early this year, the BSP cocked their guns at 16 Legacy officials, employees and agents with charges of 49 counts of falsification of public and commercial documents, along with one case each of false reporting and false statement.
The mayor of Sto. Domingo is unhappy with all the accusations. It is painful, he says, the whole crisis over his company is painful. “I have a story to tell. I have the records to show.”
De los Angeles says that the BSP was to blame. He was “harassed.” Legacy was not allowed to implement its business plans “because of the interference by regulators.”
De los Angeles says media reports were to blame. They created “fear and panic” among his investors, “with propositions like ‘anticipating massive withdrawals’ … ‘should the banks close.’” As a result, “people believed the newspapers and panicked.”
De los Angeles says there is corruption in the BSP. Nueva Vizcaya Rep. Carlos Padilla eagerly flies in defense of the mayor of Sto. Domingo. “They are supposed to protect the integrity and the stability and other matters related to banking. If the BSP itself is involved in corruption …. Of course, I am not saying it is the BSP as an institution. I know some people there who are decent but one or two or three there who are involved in shenanigans can undermine the entire banking industry.”
In the face of the world’s contempt, the mayor of Sto. Domingo stands by his principles. His plans were innovative, he says, daring. He was adventurous, courageous, but he never broke the law.
Now he says that there are claims the Legacy Group collapsed because he chose to serve the people instead, and turned his back on the company in 2007. But they do not know that the long-suffering mayor of Sto. Domingo is bound to the soil of his tiny municipality. “Even if I had to turn back the time, I would not change a thing and still choose to serve Sto. Domingo.”
Celso de los Angeles, hero, patriot, rebel. This is his story.
