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A BILL seeking to prohibit online loan firms from conducting abusive collecting practices to their debtors has been filed in the Senate.

“Collecting money through intimidation and abuse is inhumane, especially for our poor countrymen who are forced to take on debt,” Senator Sherwin T. Gatchalian said in a statement on Monday.

The Fair Debt Collection Practices Bill, filed on Monday, proposed to ban debt collectors from engaging in any conduct that harasses, oppresses, or abuses debtors during collection.

It also specifically bans the use of threats of violence, obscene or profane language, and the public disclosure of borrowers’ names, among other practices.

The bill will impose fines between P30,000 to P60,000 for violation of the proposed measure.

The proposed measure, however, allows lending companies to use “all reasonable and legally permissible means to collect amounts,” without using abusive, unfair, and untoward conduct to the debtor.

The bill also seeks to impose allowable debt collection practices and sets out guidelines to ensure confidentiality of information and transparency in transactions. — Adrian H. Halili