WestMinCom acts on alleged car rental and money market scam

COTABATO CITY - The military is now trying to account for hundreds of vehicles entrusted to soldiers by a now controversial money market outfit in exchange for cash investments.Lt. Col. Gerry Besana, spokesman of the Western Mindanao Command, said Wednesday uniformed lawyers are now helping resolve the problem, a result of a rent-a-car and money market scheme of the Lahdins Marketing in Cotabato City that went awry.Armed Forces chief Gen. Carlito Galvez, Jr. said last week he has learned of the operation of the Lahdin’s Marketing and that he has directed a group of officers to conduct, along with the police, an inquiry on the persona of its owner, Cazzandra Balawag-Dinayugan.There are two groups now preparing criminal charges against the owner of the Lahdins Marketing --- the car owners whose units the outfit promised to rent for P40,000 to P50,000 monthly and the soldiers, police personnel and private individuals who invested P300,000 to P350,000 cash expecting 20 to 30 percent interests for the principal deposits.Besana said the WestMinCom found out that the cars, mostly high-end sports utility vehicles, were turned over by Lahdins Marketing without consent from rightful owners as initial return for the investments of those who invested money in its money market scheme.Besana said Major Gen. Arnel Dela Vega, commander of WestMinCom, also issued early this week a directive for soldiers who acquired vehicles from Lahdins Marketing to turn over the units to their superiors for proper accounting by the Highway Patrol Group of the Philippine National Police.Galvez, who was in Sultan Kudarat, Maguindanao last Saturday for a dialogue with top officials of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, said military units that have members keeping vehicles from Lahdins Marketing will cooperate in on-going investigation on the alleged scam.Officials of the Army’s 6thInfantry in Maguindanao earlier said in central Mindanao alone, unsuspecting soldiers and police personnel and private individuals, mostly employees of different government line agencies, have invested no less than P50 million cash into Lahdins Marketing.Besana said they have received reports that no fewer than 400 vehicles, each costing no less than P1 million, whose owners had turned over to the Lahdin Marketing for a rent-a-car venture are still unaccounted for.