CITY OF SAN FERNANDO – A Regional Trial Court (RTC) judge here junked yesterday the request of Senate Pres. Franklin Drilon to allow jailed Globe Asiatique President Delfin Lee to attend on Thursday, May 15, a Senate hearing related to his syndicated estafa case.
In an interview with Punto, Lee’s lead counsel Willie Rivera said RTC Branch 42 Judge Amifaith Fider-Reyes denied Drilon’s request on the bases of Lee’s case being sub judice. “Why limit only Lee from the Senate hearings which have been going on anyway?
If tackling his case is sub judice, she might as well order the Senate from talking about his case altogether,” Rivera said. Over the weekend, Lee, in an interview in his cell at the Pampanga provincial jail, expressed hope he would be allowed some 15 to 20 minutes to “tell” all during a hearing of the Senate Committee on Urban Planning, Housing and Resettlement on May 15.
Already, he expressed apprehensions that some sectors would not allow him to attend the hearing as he cited reports that his other co-accused in the syndicated estafa case that put him in jail had already received notices to attend the hearing.
Lee said he has been wrongly portrayed in the media and insisted that all the controversies hounding his Xevera housing projects actually emanated from the Home Development Mutual Fund or Pag-IBIG. Rivera noted that Pag-IBIG officials had been allowed to air their views on Lee’s case during past Senate hearings without being warned by Reyes that the case was sub judice.
He said Lee has a pending petition for the Supreme Court to stop Reyes from continuing with the hearings on his case. In his petition, Lee even cited the “lack of propriety” on the part of Reyes to arraign him after his arrest last March “despite the pendency of several consolidated petitions on the decisions of the Honorable Court of Appeals declaring that no probably cause exists” against him.
Lee noted that the latest Supreme Court decision pertaining to his case was limited to quashing his arrest order as issued by the RTC here, and not on the merits of the CA verdict that cleared him of estafa charges. The complaint filed before the Supreme Court said the arraignment of Lee was premature and “tainted with grave abuse of discretion amounting to lack and/ or excess of jurisdiction because this Honorable Supreme Court has yet to resolve the petitions.”
Lee expressed disappointment of the RTC’s barring him from the May 15 Senate hearing, after he vowed to “tell all, as the people must know the truth.” “Given the chance to talk freely during the hearing for about 15 to 20 minutes, I will later answer all the questions of the senators,” he stressed, expressing hope that Senate Blue Ribbon Committee Chair Sen. Teofisto Guingona III would be there to help him “pursue the truth.”
P1.5-B seed capital
Lee stressed that he never borrowed funds from Pag-IBIG. “I had a seed capital of P1.5 billion of my own money when I put up Xevera housing in Bacolor (Pampanga) out of the P2.7 billion of Globe Asiatique network, my earnings from 20 years as real estate developer,” he said.
“It was a housing project I dreamed of, because I myself did not grow up in a privileged community. I envisioned a place where residents are near the municipal hall, the church and the school,” he recalled. He noted that at both Xevera projects in Bacolor and Mabalacat, he built not only housing units, but also donated the schools, churches and municipal halls in the two sites at the cost of about P500 million.
“I had wanted these features in the two communities because savings on transportation cost would help (the residents) enable to pay amortizations for their housing units,” he said. Lee also stressed that his firm was authorized by Pag-IBIG to sell Xevera housing units and collect monthly amortizations, it was never granted the authority to validate the Pag-IBIG membership of the housing applicants.
“All the applicants got clearance from Pag-IBIG and had to present Pag- IBIG membership status verification slip or MSVS before we process their papers. The beneficiaries, not us, had to go personally to the Pag- IBIG office for this verification,” he noted.
Replacement buyers
Lee said GA was also authorized to take in “replacement buyers” for those who were already awarded housing units but failed to comply with their contracts. Another buyer is sought only after the contract with the initial buyer has been voided, he noted.
“All went well with Xevera in Bacolor, but the trouble started when the other project in Mabalacat had been completed,” he said. Under the new leadership of Vice Pres. Jejomar Binay as chair of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC), Pag-IBIG cancelled its memorandum of agreement with GA, including the authority to sell, collect amortizations, and find replacement buyers.
Pag-IBIG also stopped issuing titles to those who had fully paid their units, Lee recalled. Lee declined to comment on the role of Binay in the Xevera controversy, but his supporters here, including some mayors who asked not to be named, noted that Lee’s daughter had acted as maid of honor during the wedding of Interior and Local Governments Sec. Mar Roxas and newscaster Korina Sanchez.
However, Lee himself declined to confirm or deny this. Lee also noted that even before his firm came under fire from Pag-IBIG, he had already written Pag-IBIG about the case of 1,400 “spurious buyers” who were given clearances by Pag-IBIG.
“How could I be accused of double selling, or using ghost buyers if all of them first had to personally obtain MSVS from the Pag-IBIG office?” he noted. Lee also said Pag- IBIG still owed him P592 million worth of “buy back guarantee.”
While the estimated market value of each Xevera unit was placed at P830,000, Pag-IBIG covered only P750,000 per unit but turned over to GA only P670,000 so that the difference could accrue to the guarantee fund.
Such fund belongs to the GA which could collect it after five years. Security for Lee remained tight at the provincial jail where he was given a cell in a newly built section with cells still unoccupied by other inmates. Guards prohibited cellular phones and cameras from being brought in.
His cell was spartan, but he was allowed electric fans amid the heat coming from a wide concrete space facing his cell. Lee said he suffered from high blood pressure, but felt otherwise healthy.
