ANGELES CITY — They are the forgotten and the neglected, or so it seems from the perspective of homeowners of both Xevara subdivisions in Bacolor town and Mabalacat City.
Xevera Bacolor homeowners’ association president Jose Quiambao, Jr. and Xevera Mabalacat president Choock Santos decried the lack of government support and negative publicity the Delfin Lee brouhaha has caused in their subdivision during a meeting here last Saturday.
Both homeowners associations’ presidents said they will come up with a joint manifesto that will somehow correct the misconception that both housing complexes in Pampanga are now abandoned, neglected and forgotten as gleaned from recent media reports.
Xevera Bacolor vice president Ramon Recto said the legitimate homeowners of Xevera are the ones that were forgotten and neglected by the government and the national media which project their subdivision as rows of neglected and abandoned houses.
“The problem is not the law but public perception” because Delfin Lee was “demonized.” He said “the common person or even the ordinary Pag-IBIG member does not understand the law. What he understands is that Delfin Lee cheated Pag- IBIG members of billions of pesos even if that is not true.”
“Date ang bango bango ng pangalan ni Delfin Lee at ang ganda ng Xevera. Ngayon kami ang napabayaan ng gobyerno (Before the name of Delfin Lee was so sweet and it’s beautiful in Xevera. But now we are neglected by the government),” Recto, a younger brother of Sen. Ralph Recto, said.
According to Recto, Xevera Bacolor used to have a security force of 90 security guards. For this alone, he said, homeowners felt they were living inside a plush subdivision as their visitors were even screened at the gate before being allowed inside to see them.
“Noon kakatok muna yung security guard sa bahay namin. Mayroon po kayong bisita at magtatanong papapasukin po ba namin? (Before the security guard will knock on your door and advice you that you have a visitor and asked, should we let them in?),” recalled Rector.
“Low-cost housing project ang Xevera pero akala mo (but it seems like) Forbes Park,” he said. But now only 12 security guards remain guarding the subdivision where 2,300 are presently occupied out of 3,500 housing units, Recto lamented.
Recto said before, there was routine garbage collection and the whole subdivision was well-maintained. He also said before “we have a school managed by the ABS-CBN Foundation and there’s practically everything you need in a community including our own wet and dry market, a commercial center, a municipal hall extension, eco-park, swimming pool, community center and even a church.
“Nasira lahat ng ito nung kinasuhan si Delfin Lee who went into hiding because obviously he felt threatened,” he lamented.
No support from Pag-IBIG
Recto said when they realized that everything was being ruined, “the first thing that we did was to ask Pag-IBIG for support. We went to the Pag-IBIG regional office in November 2012. We went to the office of Attorney Joseph Quiboloy.
We told him that we needed support because our association fee collection was not enough to maintain the subdivision.” “What Quiboloy did was make a lot of promises to help us starting with the amount of almost P200,000 a month for our security and maintenance of the subdivision,” Recto narrated.
Nothing happened despite numerous follow ups and visits to his office, Recto said. “So in March, 2013, we wrote a letter to Vice President Jejomar Binay informing him of our concerns and that we have visited Quiboloy and asked for support.”
“Alam po namin kayo lang and makakatulong sa amin (We know that you are the only one who can help us),” Recto said referring to the vice president.
“And these are all on record but it’s now two years since we went to Quiboloy and a year after our letter to Binay, but still no help ever came, not even a single centavo,” Recto lamented. “Even if we put Delfin Lee behind bars with five consecutive life-term convictions, will that help our cause?” he asked.
On negative publicity
Santos said they went as far as banning the media from covering Xevera Mabalacat after it was shown that the subdivision was ruined and abandoned. Santos said a television crew went to Xevera Mabalacat and proceeded to set up their OB van which has a generator that emitted a loud noise which in turn inconvenienced homeowners.
But he said all that was shown was tall cogon grass in a section of the subdivision that was not occupied as well as unoccupied housing units. Santos said the housing units shown on TV had no occupants. He lamented that only the complainants were interviewed.
Santos said there are talks going around the complainants will be awarded with their housing units once Lee is convicted. “There were only 104 complainants that were recorded by the association out of 3,000 homeowners from 6,435 housing units, how come none of us was ever interviewed?” he asked.
In Xevera Bacolor, “Pinalitaw ang lamp post na basag, yung eco-park namin pinalitaw na walang tubig at yung gate po namin napakaganda pati yung island namin napaka ganda bakit di yon ang kinuha (They showed a broken lamp post, they made it appear that the eco-park has no running water, our gate is beautiful and our island is beautiful why were these not shown?).”
Xevera Bacolor officers present aside from Quiambao and Recto were Marino “Lai” Bituin, Conrado Caguiat and Heidi B. Tuvera while those who were present from Xevera Mabalacat aside from Santos were his complete Board of Directors.
