Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian has filed Senate Bill No. 1366 regulating the debt collecting practices of financing and lending companies to protect ordinary Filipino borrowers from harassment and unethical practices perpetuated by predatory lenders.
“The Fair Debt Collection Practices Act” seeks to prohibit and eliminate the use of abusive, deceptive, and unfair debt collection practices by debt collectors.
The vice chairman of the Senate Committee on Economic Affairs cited numerous complaints that his office has been receiving about harassment and similar schemes that financing and lending companies and their third-party service providers employ just so they can press borrowers to pay their debts.
In some cases, according to Gatchalian, a collection agent would threaten to disclose the borrower’s indebtedness on social media or make it appear that a formal complaint has been filed against the borrower.
“This measure aims to eliminate, if not minimize, unfair and abusive debt collection practices conducted by debt collectors against consumer-borrowers by providing allowable means to acquire location information of the borrower and enumerating prohibited acts,” he explained.
“It likewise places the debt collector and the consumer-borrower in the same level playing field as the measure provides adequate legal remedies to borrowers who are victims of these wayward practices,” he added.
The bill prohibits debt collectors from harassing, oppressing, or abusing any debtor, as well as using any false, deceptive, or misleading representation or means in connection with the collection of any debt. (Mario Casayuran)