Monetary board member Anita Linda Aquino, just under four years as member of the policy-making body of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, has resigned in the wake of a scandal involving ghost central bank employees.
The newspaper The Philippine Star, citing a senior BSP official as source, reported that Aquino has submitted her resignation to President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. following a scandal over ghost employees. She was the second MB member to resign over the issue. Fellow MB member Bruce Tolentino, who gained a reputation as a development economist, tendered his own resignation days earlier.
Malacanang, who appoints all six MB members, has yet to confirm their departure from the highest policy-crafting body at the BSP.
Aquino joined the monetary board as its youngest member in July 2020. Tolentino first joined the MB in June 2018 when the late Nestor A. Espnilla was BSP governor to serve the unexpired term of Valentin Araneta until 21 July 2020 but was promptly reappointed to serve another six years.
Days earlier at the Tuesday Club breakfast meeting at the EDSA Shangri-la Hotel, BSP governor Eli Remolona, who chairs the seven-member MB, acknowledged he was flabbergasted when he was first informed of this development and promptly launched an investigation to ensure nothing of the sort happens again.
Remolona said the BSP investigation established that four BSP employees and their immediate supervisors were working for the MB members. Remolona would withhold the identity of the four employees who have since resigned, citing Civil Service Commission rules.
He also said there is a process for recovering the salary of the BSP employees found to have been absent from work for extended periods of time before their anomalous performance was uncovered.
