Broadcaster Anthony Taberna has called out the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas to exercise its mandate and sanction EastWest Bank for allegedly allowing the unauthorized transfer of P15.38 million to his former finance chief.

Taberna owns Taberna Foods Inc. which maintains an account at EastWest Bank.

He said it has been more than a year since he filed an administrative complaint before the BSP against EastWest Bank and its UP Village branch manager Gualberto Baluyut, who allegedly allowed the transfer of the amount to Ernie Patrick Aquino, Taberna's former employee.

"What I just want to relay, specifically to BSP Gov. (Felipe) Medalla, is that they should at least have a swift decision on this kind of complaint," Taberna said.

He said if this can happen to him, "what more for those who don't have access to the media."

"It's not a call from us but from the general banking clients as well," said Taberna. Medalla has yet to respond to calls and messages.

Taberna said he filed the administrative complaint in June 2021 through the Consumer Assistance Mechanism (e-mail: consumeraffairs@bsp.gov.ph) and the BSP Office of the Special Investigation, accusing Aquino of allegedly conniving with Baluyut. He said the fund transfers resulted in the shutdown of his branches of Ka Tunying's chain of bakeries and restaurants.

"We used to have 10 branches before this happened, then the pandemic also hit us. Ang natira sa amin ay tatlo na lang but we regained momentum and we were able to keep our two branches," he said.

What made it worse, according to Taberna was that they had to pay all their debts to suppliers and lessors at NAIA and SM when they thought they had been paying religiously.

He said the unpaid lease was around P2 million while the unpaid obligations to suppliers reached P1 million.

"Our operation was greatly affected, and we laid off some personnel because of this criminal act. I hope the BSP can do something about this because I think EastWest has been notorious for these kinds of acts," said Taberna, citing some reactions he received on social media.