SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga- The lawyer of Globe Asiatique owner Delfin Lee, who carries a P2 million reward for his capture, said yesterday that the complainant failed to pay a P132-million filing fee in the case against his client.
“The Rules of Court was violated in issuing the warrant of arrest against my client because of the failure of Pag-Ibig to first pay the filing fee,” Lee’s lawyer Willy Rivera told Punto.
Rivera also said he has asked the court to dismiss the criminal complaint against Lee, noting that a similar civil case against his client had already been dismissed by a Makati City court.
“The criminal case should be dismissed because my client did not violate any contract. Globe Asiatique was merely the developer of Pag-Ibig. It just guaranteed the loans already approved by Pag-Ibig,” Rivera said.
In petitioning for the dismissal of the case against Lee, Rivera stressed that “it was Pag-Ibig which proposed the contract of adherence in all the Xevera housing loans.”
Rivera said that the RTC should not have issued any warrant of arrest against Lee without Pag-Ibig paying the filing fee worth P132 million.
Rivera said, however, that he did not know where Lee was and that his actions as legal counsel for Lee were based on his coordination with members of the Globe Asiatique board.
He noted that the Globe Asiatique board has not been dissolved and remains active.
Pres. Aquino recently increased to P2 million the bounty for the capture of Lee who is facing syndicated estafa charges before RTC Branch 42 in this city.
Lee’s son Dexter, and three officers of Globe Asiatique have standing warrants of arrest also for the same syndicated estafa case involving their Xevera housing projects in Bacolor and Mabalacat towns in this province.
Last May, RTC Branch 42 Judge Maria Amifaith Fider-Reyes issued warrants for their arrest with no recommendation for bail.
The suspects were accused of using “ghost borrowers” and fake documents to obtain over P6.5 billion in loans from the Pag-Ibig or Home Development Mutual Fund for the housing projects.
Most of the victims were ordinary workers, as well as overseas Filipino workers who complained of being assigned units already named to others.
