BAGUIO CITY, Philippines?Pag-Ibig, the state-run home Development Mutual Fund, is set to file charges against land developer Globe Asiatique Realty Holdings Corp. for alleged fraudulent use of the agency?s housing loans.

Vice President Jejomar Binay said in an interview that he had given a team of investigators a week or up to Sept. 4 to finalize the suit.

Binay is chair of the the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC), which groups seven housing-related agencies, including Pag-Ibig.

Binay was here on Saturday to speak to local scouts at the Teachers? Camp and to address the Baguio and Benguet homeowners associations.

?As early as my first week in office, the folder of Globe Asiatique was already on my desk...so I asked my people to take a look,? Binay said.

The Inquirer ran a two-part series about alleged anomalies in the P7-billion housing loan that Globe Asiatique took from Pag-Ibig from 2008 to 2010 on behalf of over 9,000 Pampanga housing applicants of its Xevera Homes in Bacolor and Mabalacat towns.

Documents suggested that the firm profited from the loan by using ineligible borrowers.

But Delfin Lee, Globe Asiatique president, denied this.

In the statement, Lee said: ?If the charges, claims and allegations are true, we will end up the victim because we will be the one paying as we have guaranteed every loan takeout in our projects... The government?s money and that of the Pag-Ibig Fund members are safe and protected.?

Once a criminal case is filed, the HUDCC will start its internal audit to determine whether government officials and employees are liable for the allegedly anomalous loans, he said.

But when asked whether the probe would involve his predecessors, Binay said he did not have enough evidence to make that conclusion.

Former Vice President Noli de Castro was HUDCC chair when Globe Asiatique took out the Xevera Homes? loans from Pag-Ibig Fund, and was chair of the fund?s board of trustees.

But De Castro said he had also ordered a probe when he was informed of the alleged anomalies during his incumbency.

De Castro told the Inquirer in Manila that he was not able to follow through on the inquiry because the poll campaign had started. He said he did not get the final investigation report before he stepped down from office on June 30.

Interviewed by the Inquirer, Lee said his company had ?an unblemished record with Pag-Ibig Fund.?

?The reported dubious accounts had been settled long before the adverse publicity, but (are) being sensationalized by media to destroy the company?s IPO and to wreck its cash flow,? Lee charged.

He also claimed ?it was Globe Asiatique, not Pag-Ibig, which discovered and reported the dubious accounts, not the other way around.?

Early this week, Emma Linda Faria, a Pag-Ibig Fund official, said in a radio dzMM interview that the agency had been a ?victim of fraud.?

?We discovered 400 accounts involving Globe Asiatique borrowers who do not have the capacity to pay their loans,? said Faria.

According to Faria, Pag-Ibig Fund had discovered the irregularities ?before the May elections.?

Meanwhile, Binay said he has also ordered an inventory of all housing loan contracts undertaken by government.

He said he inherited a shelter target of over 3.3 million houses that needed to be built.

He said the Globe Asiatique case has forced the government to conduct a comprehensive oversight review of every mechanism used by government housing authorities.

Speaking to homeowners after issuing 107 socialized housing certificates to Baguio and Benguet beneficiaries, Binay said the first mechanism he wants reformed is the government-subsidized land title itself.

Binay said all land certificates being issued are contracts to sell, which means that the home lots remain under government custody until the beneficiary pays all his or her obligations in 15 to 20 years.

The HUDCC plans to issue ?contracts of absolute sale,? indicating that the social housing beneficiaries truly have custody of their lots. With a report by Jerry E. Esplanada