COMMERCIAL LAW

Banking Law

The law establishing a Commission to Conduct a Thorough Fact-Finding Investigation of the

Failed Coup d'etat of December 1989, Recommend Measures to Prevent the Occurrence of
Similar Attempts at a Violent Seizure of Power, and for Other Purposes states that the
Commission may ask the Monetary Board to disclose information on and/or grant authority
to examine any bank deposits in any bank (RA 6832) states that the Commission Isn't the
foregoing clause in violation of the Law on Bank Deposits Secrecy (RA 1405)?

ANSWER:
The Law on Bank Deposit Secrecy is merely a statutory enactment, and as such, it may be
modified, amended (for example, by providing additional exceptions), or even repealed,
expressly or implicitly, by a subsequent law. The Depositors' Confidentiality Act did not
amount to a contract between depositors and depository institutions within the meaning of the
Constitution's non-impairment provision. Even if it did, the state's police power outweighs
the non-impairment provision. A legal exercise of police authority is RA 6832, which
establishes a commission to investigate the attempted 1989 coup d'etat and suggest steps to
avoid similar efforts to grab power.