HGC lawyer’s rant angers solons

Two lawmakers have reacted angrily to the pronouncements of the lawyer of Home Guaranty Corp. (HGC) spurning attempts to force a compromise with Reghis Romero’s R-II Builders on the failed Smokey Mountain Development and Reclamation Project (SMDRP).

Ako Bicol party-list Rep. Rodel Batocabe, chair of the House sub-committee on housing, said it was “extremely reckless” of HGC counsel Dexter Lacuanan to have issued the statement mocking the panel’s attempts to move for a compromise.

“The statement of HGC lawyer Dexter Lacuanan is not only highly irresponsible but contemptuous of Congress’ mandate to look into HGC’s bleeding, as reported by the Commission on Audit (COA). The issue here is that Congress has to intervene to prevent HGC from further bleeding taxpayer’s money,” Batocabe said.

The Home Guaranty Corporation is a government-owned and -controlled corporation under the administrative supervision of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council under the office of the President.

In an Inquirer interview, Lacuanan had scoffed at the proposal of R-II Builders to reimburse HGC billions of pesos for its guaranty exposure, saying, “Why would I compromise if in the end I win, I get everything?”

“I’m willing to compromise if I’m losing,” he said. “That’s why they’re offering that. They’re losing the cases,” he said.

But in a statement, Batocabe said Lacuanan’s remarks contradicted his stance before the committee that HGC was willing to compromise with R-II Builders on the SMDRP.

“In all hearings of the sub-committee, he has always stressed the desire of HGC to sit in the negotiating table to (end) this decades-old controversy. I wonder why he is now singing a tune similar to what ousted HGC President President Manuel Sanchez had been singing before,” Batocabe said.