Banks give cold reception to new MB member

Chairman of the Monetary Board and Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Governor Nestor A. Espenilla, Jr. (center) welcomed newly appointed Monetary Board (MB) Member V. Bruce Jularbal Tolentino to the BSP, on 8 June 2018. With them in this photo are [from left] MB Members Antonio S. Abacan Jr., Felipe M. Medalla, Peter B. Favila, and Juan D. de Zuñiga Jr. The appoinment of Mr. Tolentino completes the roster of the MB, the highest policy-making body of the BSP.The seven-member Monetary Board (MB) is now complete but the latest addition to the body received cold reception from banking heavyweights and the central bank.

Victor Bruce Tolentino, 65, from Baguio City will attend his first MB meeting on Thursday, June 14, without any banker sending congratulatory notes or provided a backing of his track record.

Tolentino, who is currently deputy director-general of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) until end of June, will serve the MB up to July 21, 2020, the remaining 25 months of his predecessor, the late Valentin Araneta, who died in February this year.

According to data available online, the new MB member is a food expert because of his stint in IRRI.

The new member will join Antonio Abacan, Juan de Zuniga, Peter Favila, Carlos Dominguez III, Felipe Medalla and BSP Governor Nestor Espenilla in the seven-man board.

An economist, the official has a 35-year solid experience in the fields of fund raising, communications, and government-to-government projects in agriculture matters.

However, there are unconfirmed reports that the new MB official is a trusted man of Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III, the lone government representative at the agency.

Tolentino was undersecretary of the Department of Agriculture when Dominguez was secretary during the term of the late president Cory Aquino from 1987 to 1992. However, the new MB member seems a stranger in the banking industry based on comments received about him.

“Who is he? Never heard of him,” a three-term president of the Bankers’ Association of the Philippines told the Daily Tribune. “(I) don’t know him,” Asia United Bank president and chief executive officer Abraham Co said.

“I also don’t know him,” said BAP first vice president and East West Bank president and chief executive officer Antonio Moncupa Jr.

Senior MB member Felipe Medalla, however, said the new member of the body is a “good choice.”

“I really don’t know him. I heard he comes with a very good background,” Eduardo Sergio Edeza, former national treasurer, Bank of Commerce president and now San Miguel Corp. senior vice president and head of treasury, said.

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