Jamby: Villar reaped windfalls in 'grandfather of Legacy scam'

Senator Ma. Ana Consuelo Madrigal on Wednesday accused Senator Manuel Villar and his wife Rep. Cynthia Villar of buying lands at a low price and reaping windfalls by mortgaging them to their own bank. During the Senate of the whole hearing on the ethics complaint against Villar, Madrigal said the couple profited a total of P281 million through the alleged modus operandi that she described as the "grandfather of the Legacy scam." Madrigal said she has in her possession official documents showing that the Villar-owned companies Adelfa Properties and Link Holdings bought a 37,788-square-meter land from Enrique Factor for P11 million. Ten days after the transaction, the land was mortgaged by the two companies to the Villar-owned Capitol Development Bank for P100 million. The amount was released on the same day. In another transaction, the same Villar companies bought a 23,703-square-meter land from Maria Rodriguez for P11.3 million, and mortgaged the same also for P100 million to Capitol Bank. A third transaction involved a 23,474-square-meter land from Iluminada Rodriguez, which Adelfa and Link Holdings bought for P18.799 million and mortgaged for P81.5 million also to Capitol Bank. Madrigal did not mention the exact date of the transactions and the exact location of the lots, saying only that these were along the route of the C5 extension project. “Ito ang dahilan kung bakit pagkatapos ng dalawa at kalahating taon ay bumagsak ang Capitol Bank. Kumita sila ng P281 million sa kanilang sariling bangko," Madrigal said. She added that when the bank went bankrupt in 1998, Cynthia Villar, the bank’s president and chief operating officer, asked for an emergency fund from the Banko Sentral ng Pilipinas in the amount of P3.5 billion, which was granted. In 1998, Capitol Bank was renamed Optimum Development Bank and in 1999, the BSP sent a demand letter to Optimum Bank to pay the emergency fund it asked and the interest incurred in the amount of P4.3 billion. Madrigal said the three mortgaged lands were among those bought by the government from the Villars for the construction of the C5 extension project. She presented documents from the Land Registration Authority, Department of Public Works and Highways, Securities and Exchange Commission, among others. Villar stands accused of realigning the C5 road extension project to benefit properties registered in the name of corporations that he and his family own and control. There was also supposedly a conflict of interest on Villar’s part when he failed to divest himself of interest in corporations whose properties were acquired by the government for road right of way for the Las Piñas-Paranaque road. He was also accused of allegedly making an insertion of P200 million in Republic Act 9498 or the General Appropriations Act of 2008 for the construction of the C5 extension from South Luzon Expressway to Sucat Road including the right of way even though the project was already covered in the same law with the same amount. Madrigal said the government paid Villar P137 million for his 13 lots affected by the road construction. She said the Villar's "modus operandi" affected small depositors just like the scam allegedly perpetrated by Legacy owner Celso delos Angeles. - GMANews.TV