VP Binay accused of P200-M extort try on Delfin Lee

Detained real estate developer Delfin Lee bared on Monday an alleged attempt by Vice President Jejomar Binay to extort P200 million in exchange for his freedom.

On top of that, Lee was allegedly asked to implicate former Vice President Noli de Castro in the Pag-IBIG Fund scam.

Lee made this disclosure in a statement read by his lawyer before the Senate blue ribbon subcommittee investigating alleged anomalies in Makati City.

He was arrested last year and charged with syndicated estafa, a nonbailable crime, in connection with two housing projects in Pampanga.

Details in affidavit

“I fully welcome this development which I take as an opportunity, not so much to defend myself or tarnish the reputation of VP Binay, but to reveal the real reasons behind my prosecution and incarceration,” Lee said in a written statement given to media.

In his affidavit read during the hearing by his lawyer Willie Rivera, Lee claimed that charges were filed against him because he did not give in to the extortion attempt of the Vice President’s camp, led by a certain Gerry Limlingan.

Limlingan has been claimed in previous hearings as Binay’s bagman and dummy when the Vice President was still the mayor of Makati City.

Lee said he also refused to implicate De Castro in a scandal.

Rivera, responding to queries by Senator Antonio Trillanes IV, said his client met with Limlingan twice in an office in Makati.

‘Request’ for campaign funds ‘rejected’

“Before he (Lee) was charged, he met with Gerry Limlingan and there he was asked to give P200 million. He was also being forced to implicate (Noli) De Castro,” the lawyer said in Filipino.

“According to my client, they met twice in an office in Makati,” Rivera said.

The lawyer said Lee told him that he had also rejected a “request” by Binay’s camp for campaign funding when he was running for vice president in 2010.

“Pangit pagkakasabi ng aking kliyente (Lee): Mahina naman sa survey ‘yan bakit ako magbibigay?” (His statement was not pretty: He [Binay] is not doing well in the survey, why should I give?) Rivera said.

But the lawyer added that Lee claimed he was only joking.

Lee said he would have been present at the hearing had Judge Amifaith Fider S. Reyes not stopped him from attending. Reyes, of the Regional Trial Court (RTC) San Fernando, Pampanga, is presiding over the case against Lee.

‘Reversing’ Supreme Court resolution

He claimed that at 7 p.m. last Friday, April 7, the judge “surreptitiously and stealthily” issued an order that practically reversed the earlier Supreme Court resolution allowing him to attend the hearings conducted by the Senate.

“It seems therefore that the only resolution now is for the honorable Supreme Court to directly order the warden of the provincial jail of San Fernando, Pampanga to bring me before this august chamber in order to testify,” he said.

RELATED STORY

Trillanes: Delfin Lee to testify vs Binay at Senate