Atty. Gino Capati of the Office of the Clerk of Court met newsmen at the entrance to the Regional Trial Court (RTC) building and reiterated Judge Ma. Amifaith Fider-Reyes’s order not to allow the media inside the building.
Capati said he was again instructed by Reyes, presiding judge of RTC Branch 42 where Lee’s syndicated estafa case is being heard, not to allow the media inside the building. Capati confirmed that Reyes’ November order barring the media still stands.
Members of the media including print and broadcast journalists were again forced to stay outside the RTC building.
Monday’s hearing was on the proposed transfer of Lee from the provincial jail at the Capitol compound to the detention facility of the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology in Barangay Telabastagan here.
Motion
Atty. Roni Garay, counsel of Lee, said he filed a “Motion for Leave to Take Deposition Upon Written Interrogatories” in the continuation of the trial. He said this is done when the witnesses are jail inmates.
Garay said the prosecution now has 15 days to comment on their motion while they will have another 10 days for the defense to file their reply.
Asked to comment on Lee’s transfer to another jail facility, Garay said this is already remote.
“Malabo na siya mata-transfer dahil wala naman grounds at mayroon kaming witnesses na wala namang special treatment (The possibility that he will be transferred is already vague because there are no grounds and we have witnesses that there is no special treatment (accorded to Lee)),” the lawyer said.
Homeowners
Meanwhile, thousands of homeowners at Xevera subdivisions in Bacolor and Mabalacat City in Pampanga are vigorously urging the Supreme Court (SC) to “immediately resolve the cases regarding the alleged housing scam” against Lee citing that “their ownership of their houses has been placed at risk.”
The homeowners alleged in a four-page letter in Pilipino to Chief Justice Maria Lourdes Sereno that the PagIBIG Fund has been using the pending cases as “an excuse to reject their monthly amortizations and decline to recognize them as homeowners.”
The homeowners said Pag-IBIG stripped Globe Asiatique of the authority to collect monthly payments from them and were directed to pay instead directly to Pag-IBIG or the Home Development Mutual Fund (HDMF).
The Xevera homeowners claimed that the situation became “more complicated” when PagIBIG allegedly told them it would only accept their monthly payments if they would press charges against Globe Asiatique.
They alleged that Pag-IBIG ended up refusing their payments altogether when they refused heed such condition.
“Ngayon po, ang tanging naisasagot lang po sa amin ng mga opisyales ng Pag-IBIG ay wala silang magagawa ‘hanggang hindi nakakapagbigay ng kasagutan ang Korte Suprema sa usaping legal tungkol sa kasong kinakaharap ng aming developer,’ kahit pa sa aming pagkaka-alam ay natalo na ang Pag-IBIG sa usaping civil sa (Regional Trial Court) at Court of Appeals kung saan ang Pag-IBIG ay hinatulang may sala sa kaguluhang ito,” the homeowners said in their letter.
“Kami po ay dumudulog sa inyo upang mabigyan po ng kalinawan ang aming mga katanungan at lubos na nananalig na magkakaroon din ng kalutasan ang aming suliranin at kaganapan ang aming mga mithiin,” they added.
But the homeowners clarified that they want no involvement in the cases filed by Pag-IBIG against Globe Asiatique, of which Lee is the founder and president.
“Kung politika man o ano pa man ang kanilang motibo, marapat po lamang na hindi po kami madamay lalu’t higit na magdusa pa habang naghihintay sa pinal na resulta ng legal na asunto ng dalawang panig mula sa Korte Suprema sa apela ng talunang Pag-IBIG,” they said.
The homeowners told Sereno that they have already appealed to Pag-IBIG to re-establish the loan records of over 3,000 homebuyers or borrowers, and resume accepting their monthly amortization.
“Today, we continue to live in uncertainty and suffer the risk of being dispossessed of our homes that we have bought with hard-earned money,” they said.
“As buyers of homes, we simply relied on a government housing program which we believed was working to serve the interest of the poor. But it seems we were proved wrong. And now we suffer for having placed our trust in the system,” they added.
The homeowners pointed out that in her testimony during the Senate blue ribbon committee hearing on the alleged “housing scam,” Pag-IBIG President Darlene Berberabe admitted under oath that Globe Asiatique does not owe Pag-IBIG Fund P6.5 billion but on the contrary it is the funding agency that owes Globe Asiatique more than P600 million.
The letter was signed by the respective officials of the homeowners associations including Chook Santos, Emmanuel Timpug, Ann Padriga of Xevera Mabalacat, and Antonio Galura, Eduardo Dungao, and Dolores Dimabuyu of Xevera Bacolor.
