Judge stops Delfin Lee from going to Senate

CITY OF SAN FERNANDO—Jailed housing developer Delfin Lee will not be testifying on Monday at the hearing of the Senate blue ribbon subcommittee looking into corruption in the Makati government from the time Vice President Jejomar Binay was the mayor there.

Judge Amifaith Fider-Reyes of the San Fernando Regional Trial Court Branch 42, which is hearing the syndicated estafa case against Lee, has reversed the resolution she issued earlier allowing the businessman to attend the Senate inquiry, according to Lee’s counsel, Willie Rivera.

Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV immediately blamed Binay. He said he had yet to see the court order and had only been told of it. He believed Binay had something to do with it.

“It shows that the tentacles of Binay in the judiciary are already working,” Trillanes said.

As to whether the subcommittee would pursue Lee’s appearance at the hearing, the senator said the panel would decide on this on Monday.

Reyes, the Pampanga judge handling Lee’s case, reportedly also has court duties in Makati.

But even without Lee’s appearance, Trillanes said the subcommittee hearing would continue on Monday, as there are other irregularities involving Binay that could be discussed.

“We still have more to present. There are still two issues,” he said.

Lee has blamed his legal problems on Binay, whom President Aquino had put in charge of all housing authorities and institutions in the country. He claimed that after Binay took over the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council, Binay declared Lee’s Xevera projects in Pampanga ghost towns with bogus buyers.

Binay, on the other hand, has been critical of the Senate subcommittee hearings, saying the probe was politically motivated and intended to destroy his chances of victory in 2016. He has been leading voter preference surveys for the presidency.

Reyes earlier issued a resolution allowing Lee to attend the Senate hearing. But the Department of Justice (DOJ) objected, filing a motion for reconsideration last Monday. Reyes on Friday granted the DOJ motion, reversing her earlier resolution and stopping Lee’s appearance before the Senate.

This is the second time that Lee, who has been detained at the Pampanga provincial jail since his arrest in March last year for the nonbailable offense of syndicated estafa, has been barred from attending a Senate hearing.

Last year, Lee was invited to attend a Senate hearing by Sen. JV Ejercito.

But Reyes issued a gag order, saying that Lee was barred from discussing the alleged housing scam for which the businessman, through his Globe Asiatique Realty Holdings Corp. (GARHC), is facing trial. To do so would violate the sub judice rule, the judge said.

Lee is charged with defrauding the Pag-Ibig Fund (Home Development Mutual Fund) of P7 billion through “ghost buyers” or the double sale of units at his Xevera subdivisions in Bacolor and Mabalacat in Pampanga beginning in 2008.

Rivera said the Supreme Court last year granted Lee’s plea to offer the Senate his testimony but it was too late because the inquiry on the alleged housing scam had been concluded.

Lee was “ready to tell all” in the April 13, 2014, inquiry, intending to offer up details of an extortion attempt regarding a Pag-Ibig insurance scam, he said.

Rivera said Lee was also ready to reveal the alleged machinations aimed at implicating Binay’s predecessor, former Vice President Noli de Castro, in the insurance scam. De Castro has resumed his job as a newscaster at ABS-CBN.

Aside from six syndicated estafa cases filed against Lee by people claiming to be victims of the double sale or ghost buyers, a similar case has been filed by buyers of condominium units at GA Tower 2, a GARHC project in Mandaluyong City.

The new case includes Lee’s daughter, Divine, whom complainants claimed was chief executive officer and a member of the board of directors of GA Tower 2.

Lee’s four coaccused are at large, including his son Dexter, the GARHC vice president.