THE Department of Justice (DOJ) on Wednesday recommended the filing of syndicated estafa charges against the owners and officials of Globe Asiatique (GA), one of the country’s leading real-estate developers, for allegedly duping the Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-IBIG) of P6.6 billion.
In a 50-page resolution approved by Prosecutor General Claro Arellano, the justice department found probable cause to indict Delfin Lee, GA’s president and chief operating officer; his son Dexter, executive vice president, chief finance officer and treasurer; Cristina Salagan and Christina Sagun, heads of the GA’s accounting department and documentation department, respectively; and lawyer Alex Alvarez, an employee of Pag-IBIG’s legal department.
No bail was recommended for the Lees and their co-accused. The justice department also urged the Office of the Ombudsman to investigate former and present officers of Pag-Ibig who may have participated in the commission of the crime.
The DOJ also said the complainants, the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council and Pag-Ibig, failed to present sufficient evidence to prove that the other persons named as respondents conspired with the Lees in siphoning off Pag-Ibig funds.
The DOJ, thus, recommended the dismissal of the case against former Pag-Ibig chief Ramon Palma-Gil, and GA employees Lerma Vitug, Tintin Fonclara, Geraldine Fonclara, Revelyn Reyes, Rod Macaspac, Marvin Arevalo, Joan Borbon, Christian Cruz, Rodolfo Malabanan, Nannet Haguiling and John Tungol.
The DOJ said the allegations against the GA employees did not necessarily make them liable as co-principals since there was no indication they acted in concert in defrauding Pag-Ibig by allegedly soliciting and paying off “special buyers” and/or creating ghost borrowers.
The DOJ also noted that Palma-Gil was only implicated in the scam because of his previous professional standing.
In 2008 Globe Asiatique entered into a funding committed agreement with Pag-Ibig for its Xevera housing project in Mabalacat, Pampanga.
A year later, the HUDCC and Pag-Ibig accused Lee of resorting to fraudulent representations to convince the agency to extend loans for the project by claiming he already has existing buyers, and that these buyers were allegedly Pag-Ibig members qualified to apply for loans under the agency’s housing loan program.
Lee allegedly gave assurances his company had properly evaluated the loan applications prior to endorsing them to Pag-Ibig.
From the 9,951 alleged Pag-IBIG borrowers in the Globe Asiatique deals, 1,000 could not be located, 400 denied applying for housing loans, and 200 had incomplete documents for the transaction.
Based on the investigation of the National Bureau of Investigation, Lee, through GA, was actually engaged in a grand fraudulent scheme to swindle Pag-Ibig of its funds.
The DOJ held that that the evidence submitted by the complainants was sufficient to establish that Lee and his co-accused were liable for syndicated estafa.
Lee’s act of signing the agreements is enough to indict him for the violation committed by the corporation, it said.
“For this reason, we are without option but to turn down his defense, i.e., that he acted in good faith in signing the agreements, and that the corporation has a personality separate and distinct from its officers, especially so that said defenses involve factual and/or evidentiary matters that must be ventilated in a full-blown proceeding before the trial court,” the DOJ said.
