ANGELES CITY- Jailed Globe Asiatique President Delfin Lee has insisted he is a “political detainee” and has remained in jail “for political reasons.”
“The evidence is clear that I am being persecuted by a political figure is not only strong, it is overwhelming,” Lee declared in his statement that was supposed to be given to the Senate during a deferred housing committee hearing last May 15.
In his statement which his lead counsel Willie Rivera furnished Punto! yesterday, Lee said “I am in jail because of a Temporary Restraining Order issued by the Supreme Court.” Lee has remained at the Pampanga provincial jail since his arrest last March for syndicated estafa over alleged Home Mutual Development Funds (HDMF) or Pag- IBIG Funds for his Xevera housing projects in Bacolor and Mabalacat City in Pampanga.
“I am not a lawyer but I take it to mean that under the present judicial system, one may be arrested not only because there is a warrant of arrest against him but also because of a TRO against him,” he said in the statement released only yesterday by Rivera.
“This would only indicate that politics was involved, and your honors, it is a very dangerous proposition. Why? Because I am a legitimate businessman, yet I am incarcerated for political reasons. In short, I am practically a political detainee,” he stressed.
Lee then asked: “Is there martial law in the Philippines? Is the writ of habeas corpus suspended?” The Senate housing committee, headed by Sen. J.V. Ejercito, had invited Lee to a hearing slated last May 16 on the alleged P6.6-billion syndicated estafa case for which he was jailed.
But Pampanga Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 42 Judge Amifaith Fides- Reyes, who had issued his arrest order, barred him from attending the hearing, saying that his case was sub judice.
Binay
Lee’s camp has accused Vice Pres. Jejomar Binay of influencing the case against him. Lee has reportedly once publicly expressed support for Interior and Local Governments Sec. Mar Roxas who is perceived as a presidential contender against Binay in the 2016 elections.
“My predicament causes me to wonder, and I wonder aloud now in this august chamber. If this political figure can do this to me and my employees now, what more if the favorable winds of politics blow this person’s way in the 2016 elections?” he asked.
Lee said that “I was forced to be arraigned under an information for syndicated estafa which was quashed. I was forced to make a plea on an inexistent charge. Despite the TRO issued by a division of the Supreme Court, however, I am relying on the pronouncement of the Supreme Court en banc in 2009: that a quashed information stays quashed until revived.”
The RTC had initially ordered the arrest of Lee and four others for syndicated estafa but the Court of Appeals later junked the case, citing lack of probable cause. The CA also quashed the arrest order, but the Supreme Court later issued a TRO against the quashing of the arrest, even as the RTC proceeded to hear his case.
Another civil case over the same projects was also earlier dismissed by the RTC in Makati City. Lee has maintained
that that the HDMF or Pag-IBIG Fund was at fault in controversies in his Xevera housing projects in Bacolor and Mabalacat, Pampanga.
He said his firm never took in housing applicants without any membership status verification slips (MSVS)) issued by HDMF and that alleged cases of double sale covered housing units whose former owners were already declared in default.
The problems at the housing projects started in 2010 after HDMF suddenly scrapped its memorandum with Globe
Asiatique which initially was allowed to entertain applicants with MSVS, award them titles, collect their monthly amortizations, and seek replacement buyers for those who were declared in default of their contracts over the housing units.
Lee also said he never obtained any loan from HDMF which, he noted, has not made any claim over reported P6.6 billion funds being reported in the media. He noted that HDMF has not made any legal claim of any damage except for legal fees costing P12 million.
“It (P6.6 billion) was just media hype invented by HDMF to make this issue appear to be very serious,” he added.
