A crack team of auditors from Land Bank of the Philippines and Philippine Deposit Insurance Corp. (PDIC) was ordered to conduct a thorough examination of the inner workings of United Coconut Planters Bank (UCPB) as soon as the country’s economic managers were made aware of a successful computer hacking that left the government-controlled bank P167 million poorer.
The Inquirer learned that no less than Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III ordered the probe a few days after learning about the cyberheist that occurred over the three-day weekend of June 12 when the country celebrated its Independence Day.
The probers were ordered to determine how the hackers were able to penetrate the computer systems of UCPB, as well as to check whether the theft was aided or abetted by bank insiders.
In addition, UCPB is now being led by a former ranking official of Land Bank of the Philippines, Liduvino Geron, who was named the bank’s officer in charge since July 2, two weeks after the heist was uncovered.
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The UCPB board is also loaded with appointees of PDIC, by virtue of the deposit insurer having extended it a P20-billion in liquidity assistance in 2008—a loan that has since been converted to give government a 97-percent stake in the bank.
The Inquirer also learned that the move to put UCPB under closer supervision of bankers from Landbank and PDIC regulators came after the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) and the Commission on Audit (COA) released their respective reports on the bank, which raised issues with the financial institution’s operations and internal systems.
