Realty firm got Pag-IBIG funds in just 7 days

MANILA, Philippines—While it took other realty firms four to six months to obtain funding from Pag-IBIG, Globe Asiatique did it in just three to seven days.

Vice President Jejomar Binay, also housing czar, said this was how favored businessman Delfin Lee’s company became in the past.

Binay, in a speech at the national convention of the Subdivision and Housing Developers’ Association in Bacolod City, said the special treatment that Globe Asiatique got deprived other developers of funding for their mass housing projects.

“The implication was, while the other developers were waiting for their takeout for almost four to six months, the favored developer was getting his in just three to seven days,” he said.

Binay said Globe Asiatique employed “prejudicial modus operandi” in swiftly obtaining funding from government sources.

What happened, Binay said, was a “dysfunctional dispatch of loanable funds.”

“This was equivalent to hundreds per day from a total fund commitment line, especially and inequitably granted totaling P5 billion,” the Vice President said.

“The basic defect in the concentration of loanable funds on a single developer is the inconsistent application of a single borrower’s limit policy (SBL),” he said.

The mistake, he said, was when his “predecessors have adopted an SBL for institutional loans or development loans of P3 billion for a single developer borrower.”

“On the other hand, the end-buyers’ loan did not have an SBL limit with the justification that the borrower under this window is not the developer but the buyers themselves,” he said.

Binay said it was “incorrect since the buy-back guarantee requirement under this window is a contingent liability of the developer and therefore, should be part of a borrower’s limit.”

“This allowed that same developer in Pampanga to avail himself of a P5 billion end-buyers loan outside of his institutional loan of P3 billion,” said Binay.

“That same developer, after getting the P5 billion end-buyers loan got an additional approval of P6 billion for a project in Zambales,” he said.

According to Binay, “had this P6 billion project been implemented, more havoc would have been wrought.”

“The grant of more end-buyers loans was imprudently tolerated in the absence of a prudent SBL policy,” he added.

‘New witnesses’

In a related development, the Pag-IBIG Fund legal team is gathering testimony from “new witnesses” in the agency’s case against Globe Asiatique and Lee.

The agency is “also speeding up the conduct of a thorough investigation to determine the administrative, civil and criminal proceedings of concerned parties as may be appropriate.”

Emma Linda Faria, Pag-IBIG Fund officer in charge, said Pag-IBIG lawyers were “taking the necessary steps to prevent a repeat of the Xevera case and to assure Pag-IBIG members that their savings are being managed professionally.”

Last week, Binay said the agency had started “blacklisting proceedings” against Globe Asiatique.

These were “based on the results of our investigation,” he told reporters.

Binay said as a condition for Pag-IBIG Fund accreditation, developers are required to guarantee against fraudulent borrowers and transactions and non-completion of housing projects.

Any breach of these guarantees is ground for blacklisting, Binay had said.

Pag-IBIG Fund has also revealed that “as of Aug. 31, Globe Asiatique had racked up buy-back notices of about P1.1 billion for its Xevera housing loans.”

Pag-IBIG officials, however, said the amount didn’t make a dent on Pag-IBIG money because it “represents only half of one percent of the total assets of the fund.”

They said the loans were also covered by collateral
.

Faria assured Pag-IBIG members that “this will not affect the agency’s financial stability and capability in providing the necessary services to them.”

Jerry Esplanada, Phil. Daily Inquirer