PPI Blues

Besieged pre-need firm blames clients

Alcuin Papa
Inquirer News Service

BESIEGED pre-need firm Pacific Plans Inc. (PPI) has fired back at its plan holders blaming them for the failure of negotiations.

In a statement to the Inquirer, PPI said the "hardline stand" taken by the plan holders who had organized themselves into the Parents Enabling Parents Coalition (PEP-Coalition) was the reason the talks bogged down.

But Philip Piccio, president of PEP Coalition, denied they took a hardline stance and insisted it was the coalition which bent over backwards to accommodate PPI and come up with an amicable settlement.

The two sides have been at loggerheads since April after PPI filed for rehabilitation in a Makati court, saying it could no longer service its traditional or open-ended plan holders.

According to new PPI president Alfredo Non, PEP Coalition wanted all assets and fixed trust funds of Lifetime Plans Inc., a company spun from PPI, reconsolidated back to PPI and that the funding of the open-ended plans "should not be restricted to its corresponding trust fund assets."

"This is contrary to all existing regulations and will be detrimental to all fixed value plan holders. [It] would have the effect of dipping into the separate funds of other plan holders," Non said.

Non also said the coalition disowned a joint statement by the two sides that was presented to media at the onset of the negotiations. He added that the plan holders refused to enter a joint manifestation with the Makati court hearing the rehabilitation case.

In response, Piccio said assets of PPI should never have been spun out to Lifetime. "They (PPI) should have never taken (PPI assets) out in the first place because it was a fraudulent scheme to escape their obligations. Even courts and the SEC (Securities and Exchange Commission) see it that way."

Piccio also denied PPI's claim that they disowned the joint statement and refuted Non's claim that they refused to file a joint manifestation before the Makati court informing it of the negotiations.

"That is an outright lie. The joint manifestation was never filed because they never filed it. They never wanted it filed," Piccio said.