The Philippine Superliga board on Thursday filed a complaint of Qualified Theft at the National Bureau of Investigation against former president Tats Suzara and director for finance Donaldo Caringal.
PSL’s board said the two committed “irregular and unauthorized disbursement of company funds.”
League vice president Dr. Ian Laurel read a statement saying the board discovered, through a third party auditor that the PSL hired, irregularities in the association’s usage of funds.
“Based on the result of the audit, Messrs. Ramon Suzara and Donaldo Caringal, being both then signatories of PSL bank accounts, allowed the release and use of company funds for unauthorized purposes, which include, among others, President’s discretionary fund, travel expenses/allowances, cash advance, telephone reimbursements.”
The PSL also views the filing of the complaint as in line with the league’s “good governance advocacy in all aspects of its operation and to hold people, no matter their position in the organization, accountable for their actions.”
Suzara and Caringal, though, said the filing of the case would be of benefit to them instead of tarnishing their names.
“We welcome the filing of the case against us by some personalities in the Philippine Superliga,” the two said in a statement. “We have actually been looking forward to the legal action that they have initiated that as this would provide us the opportunity to clear our good names.”
Suzara and Caringal, who have resigned in lieu of the events that unfolded, argue that they have been the victims of “unfounded lies.”
The two said that the matter could’ve been raised during their regular board meetings instead of reaching the authorities.
“We did not resign from Superliga because of the accusations against us, we resigned our positions because we wanted to protect the sport of volleyball, the players, and the national team and insulate them from disagreements among us members of the board,” said Suzara and Caringal.
In an attempt to even the playing field, Suzara and Caringal decided to take legal actions “to protect our good names.”