Pag-IBIG favored Globe Asiatique, senator says

The Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-IBIG) seemed to have given property developer Globe Asiatique the preferential treatment, further fueling suspicions that the two were engaged in a housing loan scam involving at least P6.6 billion, Sen. Sergio Osmeña III said Thursday. "It seemed that they [were] favored," said Osmeña of Globe Asiatique during the hearing on the supposed housing loan irregularities involving Pag-IBIG and the property developer. For Globe Asiatique Realty Holdings Corp., Pag-IBIG made an exception regarding the P500-million funding limit for developers, Osmeña, chairman of the Senate banks committee, said. "The others were not even told of the relaxation either of borrowing limits, funding commitment limits, or exemptions from certain good conditions... which is a violation really of good management practice," he said. During the hearing, Globe Asiatique president Delfin Lee said that Pag-IBIG approved around P7 billion in housing loans for 9,900 units of their Xevera project in Pampanga. Emma Linda Faria, officer-in-charge of Pag-IBIG, said 1,000 of the alleged borrowers could not be located, while 400 others had already claimed their loans, and 200 borrowers lacked documentary requirements. According to Pag-IBIG, it issued P4 billion of buyback orders, because the borrowers either lacked documentary requirements, had spurious accounts, or had decided not to proceed with the loans. "It tells me that there’s some stupidity here or that there’s some criminal minds [that] remains to be proven by the National Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice," said Osmeña. Ways to improve the law Former Vice President and Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) chief Noli De Castro, who was present in the hearing, denied that Lee was given special treatment. "I don’t think [there was] special treatment in the sense that their project was a pilot program," he said. Osmeña said they are not looking for "suspects" to pin the housing loan scandal but for ways to improve the law. "I cannot arrest anybody, I cannot force anybody," he added. The Senate might not conduct another hearing on the issue and will just create a technical working group to come up with the possible proposal for legislative amendments, according to him. Pag-IBIG and HUDCC had earlier filed syndicated estafa charges against Lee and 16 other people in connection with the housing loan mess. Pag-IBIG has likewise blacklisted Globe Asiatique from its roster of accredited property developers. — KBK/VS GMANews.TV