A Limlingan at Senate but sis-in-law denying all raps

The sister-in-law of the elusive Gerardo Limlingan showed up during the Senate blue ribbon subcommittee hearing on Thursday to protest what she said were insinuations that her stockbrokerage was used to cover up alleged anomalous transactions concerning Vice President Jejomar Binay.

Marita Limlingan, president and chair of Regina Capital, castigated the Senate for involving the stockbrokerage in the controversy of which it has no knowledge. Regina Capital has had no transaction with Binay, she said.

“It pains me that the people whom we have elected to protect us and to act in our best interest would show no hesitation in shaming us and dragging us into a controversy which we have no knowledge of,” said the sister-n-law of Binay’s financial adviser.

But she later apologized after Sen. Alan Peter Cayetano said he mentioned the name of Regina Capital as part of the recitation of facts and was not insinuating anything.

Regina Capital was mentioned in the hearing when Cayetano said Noble Care’s shares in Alphaland, which were earlier said to have disappeared, were moved to the Philippine Depository and Trust Corp., with Regina Capital supposedly acting as the broker.

The Alphaland shares allegedly formed part of Binay’s supposed 5-percent kickback from the joint venture agreement between the Boy Scouts of the Philippines and Alphaland Corp., as per the allegation of former Makati Vice Mayor Ernesto Mercado.

Noble Care was supposedly used as the conduit for Binay’s share from the BSP-Alphaland deal.

Also supposedly as part of the scheme, Alphaland granted Noble Care a P100-million loan, which it later condoned on the same day as Binay’s birthday.

Cayetano had pointed out during the hearing that the owner of Regina Capital was Vic Limlingan, brother of Gerardo. Vic is Marita’s husband.

Marita said she went to the Senate on Thursday and asked to be allowed to speak after being told that the firm’s name was mentioned in the hearing.

In contrast, her brother-in-law Gerardo Limlingan has snubbed the subcommittee despite being mentioned several times in its hearings and being subpoenaed. But he has denied, through his lawyer’s statement, being Binay’s dummy. The subcommittee has since ordered Gerardo Limlingan’s arrest.

According to Marita, Regina Capital was not involved in any illegal activity, more so in any attempt to launder money for anyone, including Binay. It has not transacted with the Vice President or his family, she added.

“I expected that the Senate would have been more circumspect in its action and more respectful of the rights of the people whom it claims to serve,” she said.

Cayetano said Mercado’s allegations that Binay got kickbacks in the BSP-Alphaland deal, coursed through Noble Care, could not be easily dismissed as it was supported by evidence.

Paper trail

“At this point in time, no one can say that Vice Mayor Mercado has no basis for saying there is a 5-percent kickback because it’s not an allegation anymore. There’s a paper trail, there’s a string of evidence,” he said.

He pointed out that there were transactions of Noble Care showing that P100 million was deposited in its bank account on July 25, 2008, and P100 million withdrawn from July 29 to 31, 2008.

On Aug. 8 that same year, P100 million was also deposited and withdrawn on the same day.

He also grilled the Noble Care representative, Jay Sangalang, about why the P100-million loan from Alphaland was not listed in its financial statement.

Sangalang had said it could have been an error on the part of the company’s accountant.

But both Cayetano and Sen. Aquilino Pimentel III noted that Noble Care rarely had business activities, and thus wondered how it could fail to include a P100-million loan in its financial statement.

Sangalang said the purpose of Noble Care was to develop properties for retirees. P100 million would not actually be that big of an amount for such activities, he said.

He also said Noble Care was not always busy, and only had activities intermittently.