Ongpin denies DBP loans tainted with irregularities

Businessman Roberto Ongpin on Friday denied that there were irregularities in the multimillion-peso loans his company got from the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP) in 2009. "Contrary to the allegations mentioned in various news reports and contained in the complaint filed by the DBP against myself and 27 other individuals, the loans obtained by my company, Delta Venture Resources Inc. (DVRI) from DBP, as well as the same transaction with Two Rivers Pacific Holding Corporation were regular and above-board," Ongpin said in a statement that was supposed to be read before the Senate blue ribbon committee inquiry on Friday. The businessman was a no-show during Friday's Senate probe because he is reportedly in Europe for business. He has promised, through his counsel Alex Poblador, to attend the Senate hearings when returns to the country. He is supposed to be back in the Philippines on Oct. 25. Poblador had asked Senate blue ribbon chair Sen. Teofisto Guingona III to let him read Ongpin's statement but the senator refused, saying the businessman can read it when he attends the inquiry. In 2009, the DBP released P660 million in loans to DVRI to finance the acquisition of Philex Mining Corp. shares that were later on sold at a higher price. Earlier in the day, the Commission on Audit (COA) said there is possible fraud and insider trading in the DVRI deal. COA chair Grace Pulido-Tan cited how the DVRI, through DBP, bought the Philex shares at P12.75 per share and sold it at P21 per share. There were indications that the money DVRI got from DEB could be classified as a behest loan, senators said. In his statement, Ongpin said the loans could not be properly labeled as behest loans. "Under pertinent rules and regulations and relevant jurisprudence, only defaulted or non-performing loans can be legally classified as behest. In this case, both the P150-million and P510-million loans have been fully paid even before their respective maturities," he said. DBP could have earned more He added that DBP earned an interest income of more than P9 million on the loans. COA, however, said that the DBP could have earned more than P400 million more if it knew about the P21 per share stock price. But Ongpin said that this contention was "conjectural and speculative." "It does not constitute actual injury to the bank. Nobody could foretell the future market price of shares traded in the Philippine Stock Exchange. Only God would know," he said. "To expect myself or the members of the former DBP board of directors to foretell future stock prices is the height of absurdity," he added. Aside from this, Ongpin also said that said that the two loans from DBP represented less than 20 percent of the total financing that he obtained for the acquisition of the Philex shares. "This is contrary to what present DBP management would like to appear that I only borrowed from DBP and that the two loans were a sweetheart deal," he said. He likewise refuted the supposed claim of the DBP that the DVRI was a "puny" company with a paid-up capital of only P625,000 with reported losses of P98 million in 2008. "To clarify, DVRI was incorporated way back in 1977 and thus, its paid-up capital is irrelevant. But it is not under-capitalized," he said. He added that the DVRI's net worth by the end of 2008 was P114 million and around P1 billion in 2009, when it took out the loans. Ongpin also said that the two loans were "adequately secured" with the following collateral: 68,961,886 shares of Philweb Corp. and 50 million Philex shares. "The total collateral had a value of more than P1.8 billion representing a collateral cover of 2.8 [times]," he said. He said he and his companies complied with all the requirements for the loan applications. "In fact, until news broke out of the supposed one-day approval, I was not aware that the approvals made by the three DBP collegial bodies were made in one day," he said. He noted that he was not surprised that the loan was approved "relatively quick" because DVRI had a prior credit history with DBP and that "time is of the essence" in trading transactions. — VS, GMA News