Binay wants Lee transferred to provincial jail

By: Tonette Orejas - 11 years ago

Tightly guarded by policemen, businessman Delfin Lee (center) is brought to a court in San Fernando City, Pampanga province. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO, Pampanga — Vice President Jejomar Binay has called on authorities to transfer Delfin Lee to the Pampanga provincial jail, saying no special treatment should be given to the real estate developer who has been accused of fraudulently using some P7 billion from the Home Development Mutual Fund for two projects in Pampanga since 2008.

Binay, head of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council and chairman of the HDMF (Pag-Ibig Fund), said Lee’s arrest was the “first step” for victims to attain justice.

“Now, we must apply the rule of law and not give special treatment to the accused. Lee should be put in an ordinary provincial jail just like any accused,” he said in a statement on Sunday.

Lee’s lawyer, Willie Rivera, said his client was “more secure” while held at a jail of the Central Luzon office of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in this Pampanga capital. His lawyers cited threats to his life when they asked the court to commit Lee to the NBI jail.

Lee said he stayed in a mango orchard in Subic town in Zambales province in the almost two years that authorities were searching for him in connection with a syndicated estafa case.

“Sa totoo lang, nasa farm lang ako. Nandoon lang ako sa Subic. Meron akong manggahan doon. Doon lang ako. Mag-isa lang ako (The truth is I was staying in a farm. I was just in Subic. I have an orchard there. I was just there. I was alone),” he said in a local television interview from his detention cell at the NBI regional office on Friday.

The orchard is in Barangay (village) Asinan Proper, a hilly and forested area, according to a Philippine Daily Inquirer source.

Lee is now held in a small room equipped with an electric fan and television. It has a wooden bed without a mattress.

His food is supplied by visitors, including former Pampanga Rep. Carmelo “Tarzan” Lazatin.

NBI agents guard the cell and premises.

Rivera said he did not know if his client actually left the country in the last two years.

Lee, president of the Globe Asiatique Realty Holdings Corp. (GARHC), denied he went into hiding after Judge Amifaith Fider-Reyes of the Regional Trial Court Branch 42 here issued him and four others a warrant of arrest for syndicated estafa in May 2012.

“[We] appealed in the Court of Appeals. It took two years before the decision came out. Hindi naman siguro madaling magpakulong ka ng dalawang taon knowing very well na wala kang kasalanan (I think it is not easy to endure detention for two years knowing very well that you did nothing wrong),” he said.

Lee was referring to resolutions that purportedly dismissed the charges against him and his co-accused, GARHC official Christina Sahagun and Pag-Ibig Fund official Alex Alvarez. With two accused left –- Lee’s son Dexter, GARHC vice president, and Cristina Salagan, GARHC accounts officer –- Lee’s lawyer claimed the syndicated estafa case had been reduced to simple estafa.

Documents from the Pag-IBIG Fund showed that GARHC paid people to sign documents, using these to take out housing loans from the agency.

Home buyers also discovered that the units they bought in Xevera subdivisions in Mabalacat City and Bacolor town were in the names of other people, many of whom cannot be located, were dead or were not qualified to be Pag-IBIG members. Insiders called these people “special buyers” to distinguish them from “real buyers.”

Binay, in an interview transcript released by his office, praised Judge Reyes for her courage in handling the case.

“She is not cowed by a disbarment case filed by the camp of Lee,” said Binay.

He criticized Lee and his lawyers for exerting effort to make the police believe that the syndicated estafa case had been junked altogether when Lee was arrested in a hotel in Metro Manila on Thursday.

“The arrest warrant has not been quashed,” Binay said.

Lee will face the court on Monday (March 10). His lawyers, after filing a motion on Friday for the court to release him, are filing a motion for habeas corpus to oppose what they called as an illegal arrest.