If Delfin Lee can’t go to Senate, solons will go to him

Real estate developer Delfin Lee. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines–Even if Delfin Lee has been barred from testifying at Monday’s Senate hearing, the blue ribbon subcommittee conducting the inquiry into allegations of corruption against Vice President Jejomar Binay has a way to obtain the jailed housing developer’s testimony.

The subcommittee will ask Lee’s lawyer to submit an affidavit of his testimony and it would then ask the San Fernando Regional Trial Court to allow the panel to see Lee in the Pampanga jail so he could be questioned about his affidavit, subcommittee chair Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III said on Sunday.

Even if Lee won’t to show up at Monday’s hearing, Pimentel said the subcommittee would continue with its probe into alleged anomalies involving Binay in the Boy Scouts of the Philippines and possibly at Pag-Ibig Fund (Home Development Mutual Fund).

Binay is the national president of the BSP and heads Pag-Ibig, the government’s housing program.

Binay’s camp, meanwhile, assailed Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV for accusing the Vice President of having something to do with the court order stopping Lee from attending Monday’s hearing.

Lee’s camp, meanwhile, issued a statement on Sunday accusing Binay of being behind the blocking of the housing developer’s bid to “tell all” at the Senate hearing.

“It is outrageous that on a weekend a senator has announced that a person was willing to stand and give details of a multibillion-peso scam in the housing industry involving Binay, a judge would hastily revoke an earlier permission for that person to appear,” said the statement.