Legacy Philippines: Shards of broken piggy banks

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IF YOU'RE Filipino and nearly as jaded as I am about policymakers and government executives in the Philippines, this article may come with a tinge of lime juice laced with green mango extract. I'm talking about giving Senator Mar Roxas a two-second thumbs up for raising a howl about Philippine regulators' negligence in protecting the interests of ordinary Filipinos who bought pre-need plans from bankrupt Legacy Consolidated Plans. The sob stories of pre-need Legacy education policyholders are nothing new to us Filipinos, but still we need policymakers who show genuine interest in taking up the cudgels of ordinary folks whose piggy banks are as important as lawmakers' political dreams. And yet I say two seconds only because I'm not about to commit to campaigning for Mar when he eventually runs for president. Not yet. After all, Mar was also among few legislators who knew how important it is to keep an eagle's eyes on pre-need firms and yet we still have this most unpleasant disaster unfortunately named Legacy.

The Legacy Group owner, Celso de los Angeles, applied for corporate dissolution of his chain of companies with the Securities and Exchange Commission in December last year, according to a release by Mar's office. Such a move spells trouble for pre-need policyholders as we all know. But there's something that can make any policyholder seethe with anger now. De los Angeles "admitted to senators he had sold his 55 million pesos real estate in Ayala Alabang shortly before he applied for voluntary dissolution with the SEC." It's like a person selling his house and later telling a friend he could no longer pay his debts because he is bankrupt.

Mar has raised his voice a few decibels higher and has demanded that the Legacy Group owner compensate plan holders and bank depositors and creditors before the Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp bail out his bankrupt companies. He has also called on executives of SEC to resign.

The SEC should act now. They should now go to court and ask for an attachment order against Delos Angeles' assets. They are really very slow to act. Do we always have to tell them what to do?), he fumed. Roxas had earlier called on Barin and other SEC officials to resign for their "deliberate" negligence in protecting the interests of pre-need plan holders after their delayed action on the financial difficulties being experienced by pre-need firms.

Mar's track record in the legislative mill as far as protecting the interests of consumers and small investors can be impressive -- that depends on how you look at it, okay? Let me quote a few paragraphs from his About Me webpage:

His heart goes out to consumers who are shortchanged into buying substandard products. He led official probes aimed at strengthening the Consumer Code of the Philippines, the enforcement of proper labeling of goods containing genetically-modified organisms, and stronger safeguards against pyramiding and other similar scams. When the pre-need industry succumbed to a mismanagement-spawned financial crisis that threatened to wipe out the hard-earned investments of hundreds of thousands of consumers, Mar filed the Pre-Need Act of 2005 to improve and strengthen industry regulation and safeguard consumer interest. His leadership continues to provide to provide a sense of security and hope to pre-need plan holders.

So you see, he knows about the pre-need industry and previous unfortunate episodes that dashed the dreams of parents years ago. Crafting a bill and making sure it gets enacted is one thing, watching the executive branch of the government do its job in making sure the law works to its intended purpose is another.

If Mar really wants to be president, he better see to it that the SEC is purged of unwanted personalities. (Corina Sanchez must have already told him that. Team up, guys, for Oplan Legacy Philippines.) If he does it, I will campaign for him in the next presidential elections. Wait, are we sure only the SEC offices smell of fish these days? How about the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas and its monetary board? Any ideas? Hmm, let's see.

::: For regular updates on this subject, I recommend you visit Money Smarts. Personal finance editor and blogger Ms Salve Duplito, a parent herself and has experienced dealing with pre-need disasters, is keeping an eye on ongoing probe on Legacy.

::: And, if you're interested in what Mar Roxas would be doing to show his true intentions in the Legacy probe over the next few months (I suppose, not just weeks), there's a blog put together by his supporters who seem to be either media-savvy people or journalists moonlighting as Roxas campaign volunteers. Of course the blog puts Mar's best foot forward, nevertheless it can point to the next steps in the probe.

It's pig simple: Feed the pigs

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SHUT UP or you'll sleep in the pigsty tonight.

That was how Grandmother hushed me up about two decades ago and I recall it today upon knowing that I have failed to raise an equivalent of 100,000 pesos. That's extra money I should now have in a separate bank account a year after I concluded that saving just a tiny bit of my monthly income would translate into a significant number every year. Yeah, I'm good at wealth planning in my mind. But, wait, I guess I could blame the piglets. They didn't come, they didn't do their work.

Had the piglets been efficient as my associate wealth managers, I would have been richer by an equivalent of a hundred thousand pesos today. I'm talking about that thing called piggy bank. I had always ridiculed this image of a pig that feeds on coins, but believe me it once subsidised my holiday. Yes, annoying coins that I tossed into piggy banks gave me the dough to treat my family to Sbarro's, Yellow Cab and other budget wreckers at an SM mall during one trip to Manila.

It was fun digging into delicious pizza and pasta knowing that I could foot the bill using money I raised by feeding so-called piglets for about five months. The containers came from a remittance company that handed out plastic water jugglers and tumblers as giveaways. They looked rubbish in the apartment so I placed the tumblers at several corners as if the colors could add life to my abode. Over time they became coin collectors. You know how coins jingle in your pockets; they can get on your nerves you just have to get rid of them every so often, and so I dumped them regularly into the piglets. Just before heading for my holiday in Manila, I realized I didn't have enough money so one night I busied my mind by counting the coins. The next morning I had an equivalent of 10,000 pesos. Not bad for somebody untrained in animal husbandry, eh.

It gave me the idea of using piggy banks however ridiculous they may be. The plan was to feed piglets on a bigger scale -- drop nuisance coins plus notes in small denominations every day. I used empty drawers of tables in the apartment. It went on smoothly for awhile until I lost track of the piggery's financial goal. The piglets died of starvation.

I may have proven myself to be bad in the saving department, but I now believe the old folks are no fools when they talk about saving a few pesos a day. Even the wife has proven this in a small way. Back in my Quezon City apartment, she ordered me to participate in a piglet feeding program by dropping at least one five-peso coin into that ceramic wild mammal. It worked as a makeshift emergency fund that she dipped into each time payday felt too far away.

Grandma's piggy bank version was theatrical. As a child I went with her once on her regular visits to backyard pigsties in the barrio (village). She pointed to one pig and said: "Kana para kang Dondon (That one is for Dondon)."

"What will Dondon (not his real name) do with the pig?"

"Once it's heavy enough, I will sell it, give the money to his mother. It will send him to school."

We went to several backyards as she had 10 grandchildren. "Oh this one is for you."

"Lola, why is it smaller than Dondon's?"

"Shut up or you'll sleep in the pigsty tonight."

As I reflect now, I can say there's been no dearth of teachings on saving culture from where I come. I've been a failure in this department though and I won't declare now that I will be good this year or I might end up in the pigsty one night.


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::: First time here? Take a quick look at my list of articles. There's more to this blog than livestock feed. I sometimes write stories showing my erudite side (Lol), such as "Stupid's Wealth Creation Hypothesis" and "Sex and Investment".

::: Hopping tracks: Stumbled upon a good site today named abbysmusings.
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Pass the bacon, please
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Don't ask me how to save money

First posted on Dec 29, 2008
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Now I know how important it is to save up way before you actually buy a house or go around scouting for one. Tell me I sound mega-clueless. Well, I knew since ages ago that anyone who wants to invest in a property or buy one has to have saved a significant amount.

But it's not easy when there are so many things that you want to have -- things that you've always wanted and could never have until suddenly your income grows at a surprising rate and you tend to forget the things that matter to you from the very beginning.

So you buy airline tickets for that fancy vacation you've imagined for years. You buy jewellery for your loved ones and it makes them happy. You buy yourself a nice sound system. You shop around for nice clothes and electronic gadgets that, well, make you and everybody you love happy. And you dine in restaurants that you normally did not visit years ago, but now they seem affordable and, why not, you've got money that you've worked hard to earn and it's your money, so why not treat yourself and the family to a nice, sumptuous dinner?

The list goes on and on, the habit develops and becomes a lifestyle, and the bottom line, you realize later, has remained just as it was before your income grew --- there's not much in the bank account despite the higher income.

And you say, 'Wait, I've laways wanted to own a house'. So you start looking for one and find one that makes you drool again and you say, 'I can afford to pay the mortgage on this my salary'. And then you plunge into it without preparation.
This is my story and it makes feel really stupid.

A few days from now, on the last day of the year, my first monthly downpayment is due. I could not send the money way ahead of the due date because, as I've narrated my lousy mentality about money, I've not saved up for this investment. I've already sent the money but it's a long bank holiday in the Philippines until January 1.

Whew! I've asked a relative to do some online banking transaction using her own account and I hope she actually does it to save my butt. If she doesn't, the bank will penalize me for signing a cheque credited to an account that doesn't have enough moolah.

Yay! It's not really that bad since I can always pay the penalty, but I hate the idea of incurring unnecesarry extra expense about a month after I made an important decision to buy that condo unit.

Now I'm fidgetting on my seat.

Why is it so difficult to get into the habit of saving?


::: THE PICTURE: Not bad to have this view when I look down from the balcony of my condo. Remind me (and that's years from now) to instruct the building management to keep the grass green all the time. Dreaming, as always.

::: First time to visit this blog? You'll have a better idea of what this blabber is all about if you click on previous entries below.

I bought a house
Poor guy signs a cheque for 4m++ pesos


::: btw, i found very good and some interesting reads on these sites: by john nery -- perfect stop for newshounds out for updates on happenings in the philippines. by ian -- nice for dessert. writer sees his own city (dumaguete, philippines) in a new light with the visit of fil-am performance artist.