Dear Mr. Magno,


I write in response to your article entitled “Gagged†that appeared in your column First Person, which was published in The Philippine STAR on April 24, 2014. You have raised some points concerning the ongoing syndicated estafa case lodged against developer Delfin Lee and his co-conspirators that, with all due respect, are false and need to be corrected.


As president and chief executive officer of Pag-IBIG Fund, it is my duty to set the record straight for the benefit of our many stakeholders, who significantly rely on the media for information on the Globe Asiatique (GA) scam.
As a preliminary matter, I would like to correct the misimpression in your column that Pag-IBIG Fund and the Home Development Mutual Fund (HDMF) are two separate entities. They are one and the same, the former being the more popular name of the Fund.


Going now to the matters you discussed in your column, first, you stated that Mr. Lee was not invited to attend the recent Senate hearing that tackled the GA scam, implying that Mr. Lee was deliberately deprived of his right to be heard on the matter. But this is completely belied by the statements not just of Mr. Lee’s counsel, Atty. Willie Rivera, but of Mr. Lee himself, that Mr. Lee was going to attend the Senate hearing held on April 8, 2014. You will recall that days prior to the Senate hearing, Atty. Rivera made the rounds in media to disseminate Mr. Lee’s statement wherein the latter categorically stated that he looked forward to attending the Senate hearing. Indeed, Mr. Lee is widely quoted to have said that “in the interest of justice and fair play, I humbly submit myself to the Senate investigation to finally reveal in public the real and truthful circumstances surrounding the cases and continuing allegations against my integrity and business conduct.†As intimated by Atty. Rivera — who was present and was given ample time to advocate his client’s cause during the April 8 hearing — to the senators, Mr. Lee wanted to attend the hearing, but that since he was incarcerated without possibility of bail, his temporary liberty had to be approved first by the Regional Trial Court of San Fernando, Pampanga, which approval was not secured in time for the April 8 hearing. Thus, Sen. Joseph Victor “JV†G. Ejercito, chairman of the Senate committee on urban planning, housing and resettlement, responded that the committee will schedule another hearing and it will summon Mr. Lee through subpoena to ensure his attendance thereat.


Second, you say that the syndicated estafa case against Mr. Lee has no merit because he and his co-accused have won every court case relative to the GA scam. This is again untrue. To begin with, no court has categorically ruled that Mr. Lee is innocent of the charge of estafa. Moreover, a very important fact has been omitted, that the Court of Appeals order quashing the warrant of arrest issued against Mr. Lee has been stopped by no less than the highest court of the land, the Supreme Court, through the issuance of temporary restraining orders. You will also note that in March 2014, the Court of Appeals denied the petition for habeas corpus filed by Mr. Lee, which paved the way for his arraignment for the crime of syndicated estafa. Also, just recently, the Court of Appeals denied the petition of Mr. Lee’s co-accused, GA accounting head Cristina Salagan, to have a TRO issued against the warrant for her arrest. It is therefore completely false to claim that courts have consistently sided with Mr. Lee in this controversy.


Third, you wrote that Pag-IBIG Fund misrepresented the transactions with Mr. Lee’s companies and that the “multiple estafa†case that landed him in jail is contrived, and proof of this is that the Fund has not sent his company any demand letter for the mind-boggling claim that he defrauded the government to the tune of P6.6 billion.


But it is a basic legal principle that when a civil claim for monies is instituted together with a criminal case (here, for syndicated estafa), no demand letter is necessary. More importantly, Pag-IBIG Fund cannot be said to have fabricated the estafa charge against Mr. Lee and GA for it was the Department of Justice and the National Bureau of Investigation, that, through separate, independent investigations, arrived at the conclusion that GA defrauded the Fund of some P6.6 billion, and it was the DOJ that instituted the criminal complaints against Mr. Lee and his co-conspirators. That separate investigations into the GA scam by different government agencies yielded the same result contradicts your claim that the case against Mr. Lee is wholly manufactured.


Fourth, you allege that the “fantastic figure [of P6.6 billion] was the amount set aside to lend to homebuyers. It is not an amount remitted to Globe Asiatique, nor is it an amount actually expended in its entirety.†This is easily debunked by the fact that all these monies were paid directly to GA. For your information, the P6.6 billion worth of housing loan take-outs of the ghost borrowers of GA were directly released to GA under the Funding Commitment Agreements of GA with the Fund. So yes, all of the P6.6 billion went to the coffers of GA and Mr. Lee cannot deny that GA received all of it.


I trust that this clarifies matters. Should you seek further clarification, please let me know.— Atty. DARLENE MARIE B. BERBERABE, HDMF President and CEO