Palace orders release of DBP loan papers

The decision of Malacañang to have Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP)   make available to government investigators the documents pertaining to the controversial P660-million loan the bank extended to businessman Roberto V. Ongpin would speed up the probe of the case, Solicitor General Jose Anselmo Cadiz said Sunday.

“As the party prosecuting the case, this is definitely a very welcome development for us. It makes our job a lot easier,” Cadiz told the Inquirer over the phone.

“We will not be stymied in our prosecution of the case because the President himself has ordered that all necessary documents about this case should be made available to us,” he said.

Instead of spending time looking for documentary evidence, Cadiz said government lawyers could now focus on firming up their arguments that will prove that Ongpin and 25 other personalities violated the antigraft law and banking rules in connection with the loan.

Cadiz, who was designated by President Aquino to head the prosecution of the charges that the current DBP board had filed against Ongpin et al., stressed that the government “has a very strong case” against the accused.

Ongpin, however, has insisted that the loans were aboveboard, fully collateralized and were repaid way ahead of their maturity.

“The declassification of information on the details of these anomalous DBP transactions will be a big boost to President Aquino’s zero-tolerance policy against graft and corruption,” he said in a separate statement.

In a letter addressed to DBP president and CEO Francisco del Rosario Jr., Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa said Del Rosario’s request to allow the DBP board to disclose pertinent information on the loan that Ongpin’s Delta Ventures Resources, Inc. secured from the state-owned bank in 2009 had been approved.

The Philippine Daily Inquirer received on Sunday a copy of Ochoa’s letter dated September 13.

In the letter, Ochoa said the DBP board may also release “for examination/inquiry any information relative to details of individual accounts or specific banking transactions” in three other “exceptional cases of alleged anomalous transactions.”

These cases involved loans granted by the former DBP board to Global Air Services Inc./Metrorail Transit Corp., the installment sale of Manila Electric Co. shares and DBP’s investment in the collapsed Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc.

“I think this clears the way for a true and transparent, but strong prosecution of these cases, without worrying that the documents will not be available,” Cadiz said.