Lee not turning state witness

Globe Asiatique developer Delfin Lee.

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Philippines—Detained real estate developer Delfin Lee won’t turn state’s witness in the alleged housing scam involving P7 billion worth of loans that his company, Globe Asiatique Realty Holdings Corp., obtained from the Home Development Mutual Fund or Pag-Ibig Fund between 2008 and 2011.

Police arrested Lee at a five-star hotel in Manila on Thursday night, almost two years after he went into hiding.

Lawyer Willie Rivera, Lee’s counsel, said misinformation had led to speculation that his client was being wooed to turn state witness.

“Reports that he would be a state witness are highly illogical because there is no more [syndicated estafa] case,” Rivera told the Inquirer by telephone on Saturday.

Rivera was referring to the Nov. 7, 2013 ruling of the Court of Appeals Special 15th Division which dismissed the swindling charges filed by the government against Lee and his co-accused GARHC officer Christina Sahagun and Pag-Ibig Fund official Alex Alvarez.

The decision reduced the number of respondents from five to two: Lee’s son Dexter, GARHC vice president, and Cristina Salagan, GARHC accounts head.

A complaint for syndicated estafa requires five accused, so the appellate court’s ruling also lowered the charges to simple estafa. The government has questioned the appellate court’s ruling in the Supreme Court.

Rivera said it was lawyer Gilbert Repiso who announced that Lee was willing to testify for the state. Repiso had presented himself as Lee’s counsel.

“Attorney Repiso has no authority to say that. He is not part of DL’s [Delfin Lee’s] legal team…. This is misinformation,” Rivera said, adding that it was also not clear who Lee would turn against.

Sen. Sergio Osmeña III has said former Vice President Noli de Castro should be held accountable for the Pag-Ibig Fund mess. De Castro was chair of the Pag-Ibig Fund when the agency approved the “Other Working Groups program,” which GARHC accessed to acquire loans on behalf of home buyers. Some of these loans were for  P650,000 while others went as high as P830,000.

The complaint against Lee states that GARHC also acquired loans for ineligible home buyers.

But in a Senate hearing, De Castro said his role was limited to policies.

“We have not and we will never negotiate for DL to be a state witness,” Rivera said.

He also said that he and lawyer Ronnie Giray were  filing a case for habeas corpus on Monday to establish Lee’s arrest was illegal.

Lee went into hiding in May 2012 when Judge Amifaith Fider-Reyes of the Regional Trial Court Branch 42 in Pampanga ordered the arrest of Lee and his four co-accused.

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima said the arrest warrant was still valid because the Supreme Court has not yet acted on a petition filed by Pag-Ibig Fund officials objecting to the Court of Appeal’s decision quashing the warrant.

Lee is being held at a detention facility of the Central Luzon office of the National Bureau of Investigation in this Pampanga capital.

His lawyers cited security concerns when they asked the court not to put him in the provincial jail, which is some 100 meters away from the NBI regional office.

An Inquirer source, who asked not to be named, said that Repiso is a lawyer of Oriental Mindoro Gov. Alfonso Umali, who has been described as a friend of Lee’s business partner. Umali is treasurer of the Liberal Party and a close ally of President Benigno Aquino.

Umali admitted in a television interview on Friday that he called Police Director General Alan Purisima, chief of the Philippine National Police, to inquire about Lee’s arrest.

He made the admission after Vice President Jejomar Binay claimed that an influential man had tried to intercede on Lee’s behalf.

Joey Salgado, Binay’s spokesperson, said Binay’s camp was privy to a letter sent by Purisima to one of Lee’s lawyers, which said that the police were in the “process of delisting and waiting for final OK from [Interior Secretary Mar] Roxas.”

It was not clear what delisting meant, but Salgado said, “If Lee has been delisted, does that mean OK na [this has been approved] with Roxas?”

Binay has scheduled next week a meeting with complainants in the syndicated estafa case and other home buyers in Xevera subdivision in Mabalacat town, which is north of the city.

Documents obtained by the Inquirer showed that the Pag-Ibig loan that GARHC took out covered almost 10,000 housing units in Xevera projects in Mabalacat and Bacolor town, also in Pampanga.

Pag-Ibig investigation showed that GARHC and its agents went “foldering,” a term for making people fill-up and sign prepared loan documents in exchange for fees.

These supposed home buyers, who  could not be located when the investigation began, were dead or were not aware they were used in the alleged scam.

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