20 teachers fall victim to con loan

By Florence F. Hibionada, correspondent

Some twenty public school teachers fell victim to a well-designed con in Antique perpetrated by two tagalog-speaking women.

With P9,000 lost from each of the unsuspecting teachers, authorities in San Jose town of said province got hold of the complaints simultaneously last week.

The discovery of the scam came about Wednesday when the checks issued to the teacher-victims were found out to have 'bounced.' The checks formed part of the P30,000 salary loan availed by the victims from the two women suspects who introduced themselves as agents of the Visayas Educators' League Incorporated.

Investigators believe though that the agents identified by the names Victoria Cabais of Makati City and Myrna Sanchez of Pasig City, like the loans, were fictitious.

The News Today learned that the modus operandi of Cabais and Sanchez was likened to a regular salary loan where the teachers are approached and offered the supposed grant accordingly. Usual requirements of service records and identification cards formed part of the documents asked. In days, the applicants worked on getting the loan approved with the first set of checks amounting to P15,000 each released on a Saturday. For the full release, the teachers were asked to pay P9,000 in cash as processing and corresponding loan fees.

All went well until middle of last week when notification came that the checks drawn from an account at the Bank of Philippine Islands-San Jose were of no value.

Eleanor Juada, one of those victimized had her first P15,000 check encashed in a local grocery store last Saturday. She was told by the grocery owner of same plight three days after.

The number of the victims are feared to be more with the two women suspects nowhere to be seen in Antique.