4/16/2021 E-Library - Information At Your Fingertips: Printer Friendly currency at the time of actual payment, with interest thereon at the legal rate of 6% per annum from June 26, 1987, the date of filing of the complaint, until fully paid; b) P30,000.00 as moral damages; c) P20,000.00 as exemplary damages; d) 10% of the total amount due for and as attorney's fees, all three foregoing items with interest at 6% per annum from date hereof; and e) the costs of the suit. On the Third-Party Complaint Judgment is hereby rendered in favor of the defendant-third-party plaintiff and against third-party defendants, ordering the latter, jointly and severally, to pay and reimburse the third-party plaintiff the aforeadjudged amounts which it is ordered to pay to the plaintiff in accordance with this decision. The defendant bank's counterclaims are hereby dismissed. The counterclaims of the third-party defendants are likewise dismissed. SO ORDERED.[11] The Court of Appeals, on the other hand, found that the opening of the current account and the withdrawals therefrom were authorized by petitioner; accordingly, it reversed the decision of the RTC and absolved private respondents of liability. Respondent court gave credence to the statements of Catalino Reyes, an accountant of Pioneer Business Forms, Inc., another business venture of Tom Pek, who testified that petitioner and Tom Pek were close friends and business partners. Sometime in January or February 1979 Reyes was instructed by petitioner to withdraw the US$100,000.00 from Pacific Banking Corporation and to deposit the peso equivalent of the same in the Shaw Boulevard branch of RCBC. These were undertaken to facilitate petitioner's change of visa from tourist to foreign investor. Respondent court also accepted Reyes's testimony that he was instructed by petitioner to prepare two of the checks drawn against the questioned account, and that he witnessed petitioner sign these checks and hand them over to Tom Pek. It declared that Reyes's testimony that petitioner caused the opening of the said account was more believable than petitioner's mere denial of the same.[12] Moreover, Reyes's testimony was supported by a memorandum of the Board of Special Inquiry, Bureau of Immigration which stated that the peso equivalent of the US$100,000.00 had been tendered and delivered to applicant Chiang Yia Min as evidenced by a cashier's check dated February 8, 1979 and issued to the latter.[13] According to the Court of Appeals, this coincides with Catalino Reyes's testimony that petitioner's money was deposited by him in respondent bank, and was contrary to https://elibrary.judiciary.gov.ph/thebookshelf/showdocsfriendly/1/50982 4/14