The branch manager and cashier of RDAK Transport Equipment, Inc. now face charges of estafa after having been alleged to have conspired in using, for their personal benefit, the collection money of P1.782 million. The accused, Rochelle Cababan, branch manager of RDAK-Tagbilaran and Coleta Lahoy, the company's secretary who also served as cashier, allegedly used up the collection money totaling to P1.782 million instead of turning it over to the management. City Prosecutor Romeo Chatto penned a three-page omnibus resolution dated August 3, 2009, recommending the filing of charges after finding pieces of evidence that indicts Cababan and Lahoy for the crime of estafa under Article 315 of the Revised Penal Code. The information of the case was filed on August 25, before the Regional Trial Court in Tagbilaran City.

The accused denied the charges.

The Tagbilaran City branch of RDAK Transport Equipment, Inc., represented by its legal counsel, Lawyer Lord Marapao IV, filed a complaint for estafa and/or qualified theft against Cababan and Lahoy, after company's internal auditor found out the anomaly in April this year. RDAK Transport Equipment, Inc. sells motor vehicles in the Visayas and Mindanao. The company alleged that in March this year, collection letters were sent to delinquent customers. In the following month, the company's credit and collection officer, Fidel Subaria, who also serves as the internal auditor, came to Tagbilaran City to audit the Bohol branch. In the process, he was able to gather details of the individual accounts of the customers and as he proceeded with his inquiry, he noticed 26 discrepancies in the accounts of the customers.

Record showed that the customers had made full payment, some partial payment, to Cababan and Lahoy, for the motor vehicles they bought. But these payments or collection never reached the head office of the corporation. Subaria also discovered that Cababan and Lahoy issued receipts for these payments to acknowledge the payment made by the clients. But these receipts were those that the company no longer used. The amount summed up to P1.782 million. Subaria then confronted Cababan and Lahoy and demanded the remittance of the amount. But Cababan and Lahoy denied Subaria's allegations, saying they immediately deposited to the company's account or sent to the corporation's main office in Cebu City, all payments they received from customers. (Sen Guingguing)