SEC Commissioner Jesus Martinez has been in the hot seat recently in the ongoing Philippine Senate inquiry on the state of the pre-need industry in the Philippines, in particular the latest pre-need fiasco which is of course deals with the infamous Celso Delos Angeles and his cash strapped Legacy group of companies.
According to news reports, Celso Delos Angeles’ Legacy group allegedly gave cash and bought a million peso house for SEC Commissioner Jesus Martinez. This scandal has rocked the Securities and Exchange Commission and has stirred up public outrage against the regulatory body for its alleged inefficiency and corruption. The “professional heckler” in his blog wrote that the Securities and Exchange Commission (S.E.C) should have been renamed as “Security in Exchange for Commission.” Lawyer blogger, the “Warrior lawyer” wrote “Is this why they’re called commissioners? Because they get a piece of the action every time?”
Amidst all of this chaos, I cannot help but think how a top notch lawyer like SEC Commissioner Jesus Martinez could end his life of public service in disgrace.
Instead of his life being “full of color,” SEC Commissioner Jesus Martinez’ life has been filed with twisted ironies. He heads the SEC unit that monitors the pre-need industry, the primary job of which is to regulate and monitor the pre-need industry and to ensure the protection of the investing public who invested their hard earned money with pre-need companies. Ironically, he failed to do what he is supposed to do. This is evidenced by the collapse of several pre-need firms. No matter what SEC Commissioner Jesus Martinez says, he needs to remember that “Everything rises and falls on leadership.” The fact that several pre-need firms has collapsed under his watch shows whether or not he has beein doing his job.
SEC Commissioner Jesus Martinez is said to be an officer of the party-list group Citizens’ Battle against Corruption or Cibac. How ironic it is that he is accused of the very same corruption that he has vowed to stop!
And how ironic is it that his name is “Jesus” which of course means “saviour” ? (Without giving disrespect to the precious name of our Lord Jesus Christ) I don’t think he has lived up to his name very well. Instead of being the “saviour” of plan holders, SEC Commissioner Jesus Martinez has become their tormentor.
As one of the lawyers for several legacy clients here in Cebu, several months ago, I bought some books on Corporate law to brush up on my knowledge of the subject. Guess who is the author of one of the books I bought? SEC Commissioner Jesus Martinez. Now isn’t that ironic?
Update: SEC commmissioner Jesus Martinez just died of cancer. May God have mercy on his soul. I hope Celso Delos Angeles who has been reported to be also having stage 4 cancer of the throat doe s not suffer the same fate as Martinez, not until he pays all those he defrauded. (Remind me to take my Stimerex ES, so that I may not end up like those guys):-)
(Picture courtesy of www.inquirer.net)
ironic indeed! I have not really followed the story of these legacy banks. but i do think that some business models, however profitable it is today, will somehow collapse in the future. Remember the lending investors a few years ago?
Beside the nice article, I really like the look