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AMID the
reported foreclosures of real-estate mortgages, House
Speaker Prospero Nograles has directed the House
Committee on Housing and Urban Development to
investigate the Balikatan Housing Financial Inc. (BHFI),
which has entered into a joint venture with the National
Home Mortgage Finance Corp. (NHMFC) to manage
nonperforming residential mortgage loans.
At the
same time, Nograles ordered committee chairman Lakas
Rep. Rodolfo Valencia of Oriental Mindoro to look into
the BHFI’s involvement in the government’s housing
program, pointing out that it has become an “instrument
of creating more homeless Filipinos” instead of helping
solve the housing problem.
“It is
against the social policy of the government. Socialized
housing was meant to build more houses, not to embargo
more. What will happen to those whose homes have been
taken away by the BHFI? They should have pity,” Nograles
said.
At the
same time, Nograles asked Valencia to fast-track the
approval of proposals that will stop foreclosures and
allow homeowners to restructure their housing loan
accounts.
Nograles
ordered the probe, saying that the joint venture has
turned into a disaster as the BHFI is now foreclosing
some 52,000 low-cost and socialized housing units which
it acquired from government housing agencies at “super
discounted prices,” only to resell them again at “super
high prices” to the original beneficiaries.
“This is
a total reverse of government housing policy. We should
instead restructure and condone penalties and surcharges
and not remove the roof above their heads and eject
them,” said Nograles.
He
deemed it ironic that the BHFI, an Asian Development
Bank (ADB)-funded holding company set up and owned by
the NHMFC and international real-estate investment firm
DB Real Estate Global Opportunities IB LP (DBGO), would
be foreclosing the socialized housing mortgages while
its mandate is to infuse much-needed liquidity to the
low-income housing sector.
The BHFI
is managed by Bahay Financial Services Inc. (BSFI),
described by its web site as “a pioneering multinational
mortgage servicing platform that combines functional
competencies in mortgage finance origination and credit
underwriting, loan servicing, default management,
property management and secondary market development.”
According to the ADB web site, the BSFI, which has
secured a $1-million equity investment from ADB, was
created for “servicing, management and administration of
mortgage loans and related collateral property in the
Philippines held by Balikatan Housing Finance Inc., a
holding company set up and owned” by DBGO and NHMFC.
Instead
of foreclosing the real- estate mortgages of delinquent
beneficiaries of the State housing program, housing
agencies should extend to them all available support to
protect them from ejection, “especially in the light of
the present economic situation.” |
