The case of Delfin Lee, founder and chief executive officer of Globe Asiatique is all over the media and just like in the pork barrel scam with Janet Lim Napoles in the center, the question that bugs ordinary mortals like us is: Who is Lee’s patron and protector?
It strains one’s credulity that Lee secured P6.7 billion from the Home Development Mutual Fund or HDMF, also known as Pag-ibig Fund on his own.
The HDMF is a vital agency because it addresses the generation of savings and providing shelter for millions of Filipinos. Because membership is mandatory, hundreds of thousands of workers from the public and private sectors were able to mutually build a P282 billion-fund over the past decades. It’s hard-earned money by Filipino workers.
Delfin Lee must have smelled the money when he eyed a socialized condominium project with Pag-ibig Fund in 2003 through the GA Tower Project in Edsa. It was a ground-breaking event because Pag-ibig increased its loan ceiling to a maximum of P2-million and Delfin Lee’s Tower Project was just in the right time and the right place.
The fast uptake of condominium units was buoyed by demands of overseas Filipino workers so Globe Asiatique followed up the Tower Project with a similar project in 2005 and from then on, Delfin Lee became an urban legend in the real estate world, much like King Midas whose touch turned everything into gold.
The best was yet to come in 2008 when GA became an official partner of Pag-ibig to provide housing for self-employed workers, household helpers and overseas Filipino workers. The agreement led to piloted projects in GA’s Xevera housing projects in Cavite, Pampanga and Angeles City, wherein GA was able to access loans on behalf of Pag-ibig Fund members amounting to more than P7 billion.
In the Pag-ibig Fund office, the name Delfin Lee must have struck terror in the hearts of agency workers because unlike other housing loan beneficiaries who have to wait four to six months before their loans are granted, loan applications of GA’s clients are approved and released in just 10 days.
Asiatique transactions alerted the state watchdog and the media, and soon enough, Pag-ibig found out that 1,400 of GA clients are fake members. A separate investigation by the
Commission on Audit also revealed that more than 300 accounts were made by ghost borrowers although as of last report, the number had upped to more than 5,000.
I cannot imagine how more than 10, 50 or even 100 fake borrowers could go past the gate of Pag-ibig without officers being able to detect any discrepancy, but over 5,000? And courtesy of the same housing company?
On Oct. 31, 2010, University of the Philippines professor and Inquirer columnist Randy David wrote about Delfin Lee after the paper published a photo of the controversial housing czar kuno with Pag-ibig echelon Jaime Fabiana and Emma Linda Faria.
The photo had Lee putting his arm around Pag-ibig chief executive officer Fabiana, as if they were buddies. David found the photo rather curious and disturbing because while the Pag-ibig officials were dressed formally, Lee was just clad informally. In the photo, the Pag-ibig officials “looked uncomfortable,” according to David’s observation, as if they were just forced to join the photo op.
The timing of the photo op could not have come at an opportune time for Lee because numerous complaints were piling up in 2010, lodged by irate clients who spent their lifetime savings to spurious housing contracts. Their stories were the subject of a two-part article written by Tonette Orejas of the Philippines Daily Inquirer’s Northern Luzon Bureau.
In fact, the Senate jumped into the fray in the latter part of 2010 by conducting a hearing to investigate the case. Led by Senator Sergio Osmena III, the hearing ended with the office of the senator coming up with a press release to deny reports that Delfin Lee was cleared by the Senate committee.
In any case, the point raised by Prof. Randy David in his article, “The Picture of Delfin Lee” is very relevant in the sense that Pag-ibig could not have committed billions of pesos to piles of spurious loans by one company unless Lee was just acting for somebody who virtually calls the shots in the agency.
Allow me to lift some parts of David’s article.
“Delfin Lee could not have gotten this far without the backing of someone who uses political muscle to soften the stiffest resistance from professionals in government. The man in that photograph who carried himself as if he owned Pag-ibig definitely had a protector who was clever enough not to be in that picture.”