De Lima, complainants hail SC decision

Justice Secretary Leila de Lima: Thankful to SC. INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Justice Secretary Leila de Lima and complainants in a syndicated estafa case against Delfin Lee on Thursday hailed the Supreme Court for its decision to stop the implementation of the Court of Appeals’ order last November annulling the arrest warrant issued against the housing developer.

The high court’s issuance of a temporary restraining order (TRO) ensures indefinite jail time for Lee.

“I really thank the Supreme Court for also fulfilling its own mandate,” De Lima told reporters.

She said it was good that the high court “intervenes in an appropriate and timely manner under its power of review over the actions or decisions of the lower court, including the Court of Appeals.’’

Lee, president of Globe Asiatique Realty Holdings Corp., was arrested on March 6 in Manila after two years in hiding.

A day after the high court’s decision, the Court of Appeals junked the habeas corpus petition sought by Lee, dashing further his hope to be released immediately from prison.

In denying the housing developer’s habeas corpus petition, the appellate court’s special first division on Thursday said that Lee’s arrest on March 6 and his subsequent detention was pursuant to a legal process.

Lee’s camp said his arrest was illegal because the appellate court had ruled that the warrant had been quashed. But government officials said his arrest was valid because the Court of Appeals ruling was questioned in the high court.

In the City of San Fernando, Ferdinand de Guzman said it was good that the Supreme Court issued a TRO on the appellate court order annulling Lee’s arrest warrant.

De Guzman, along with 24 home buyers in Xevera Subdivision in Mabalacat City in Pampanga province, sued Lee and four others in late 2009.

“It’s time that he faced his wrongdoing,” De Guzman said on Thursday.

With the TRO from the high court, De Guzman said he and his fellow complainants expected Judge Ma. Amifaith Fider-Reyes of the Pampanga Regional Trial Court Branch 42 to conduct the proceedings fast and the National Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Justice to identify more of Lee’s cohorts and recruiters of fake home buyers.

Scheme

De Guzman was referring to a scheme in which Globe Asiatique and its sales agents allegedly paid people up to P5,000 to sign spurious documents to avail themselves of housing loans from the Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-Ibig Fund), the national shelter and savings agency

Globe Asiatique took out P7 billion in loans since 2008 for around 10,000 houses, court records showed.

Of the 9,951 houses in Xevera Mabalacat, 60 percent were in the name of “bogus buyers,” lawyer Darlene Marie Berberabe, Pag-Ibig Fund president, said in a forum on Monday.

While 4,354 units were attributed to “real borrowers,” Berberabe said only one in every four was regularly paying monthly amortization.

This, she said, indicated that Pag-Ibig Fund would take more time recovering the P7 billion that went to Globe Asiatique.

Lee’s lawyer, Willie Rivera, did not answer calls seeking his comments on how the high court’s TRO affected the case and his client.

Assistant State Prosecutor Mark Estepa said, “It’s as if no Court of Appeals decision came out while the TRO is [in effect].”

Arraignment

“The accused was [arrested]. The case is revived at the RTC,” Estepa said.

He said the hearing was scheduled to resume Friday but he was not certain if Judge Reyes would proceed with the arraignment of Lee.

In a resolution dated March 13, the appellate court division said it received Wednesday the Supreme Court resolution on the TRO that enjoined the Court of Appeals “from implementing and enforcing its Nov. 7, 2013, decision” that cleared Lee of the syndicated estafa case and lifted his arrest warrant.

Second warrant in effect

“In light of this development, the issue of whether the decision dated Nov. 7, 2013, … is executory and effective has become academic. In short, petitioner Delfin Lee cannot as yet invoke this court’s ruling on account of the specific injunction issued by the Supreme Court, and thus, the second alias warrant of arrest that was executed against petitioner has maintained its efficacy,” the court resolution said.

Thus, the appellate court division denied Lee’s extremely urgent petition for peremptory writ of habeas corpus, “it appearing that the arrest and consequent detention of Lee is pursuant to a legal process.”

The appellate court said a writ of habeas corpus could be issued only when a person seeking relief had been unjustly or illegally deprived of his freedom.

“Otherwise, if the restraint is because of a legal process, ‘the writ of habeas corpus is unavailing,”’ it said.

Alone in jail

At the Pampanga provincial jail where Lee has been held since March 10, the developer has remained alone in a cell at the newly rehabilitated prison.

Lee has not been allowed to mingle with the 953 inmates held in 15 cells at a nearby block.

Lee, when interviewed in jail on Monday and Tuesday, had denied that his company defrauded home buyers.