Court junks estafa case over P6-B Globe Asiatique ‘scam’
A Pampanga court has dismissed an estafa case against Globe Asiatique founder Delfin Lee and four others in an alleged P6.6-billion housing scam, where they were accused of using “ghost borrowers” to secure loans from the Home Development Mutual Fund, also known as the Pag-Ibig fund.
In a decision promulgated by the San Fernando, Pampanga Regional Trial Court (RTC) on Feb. 25 and penned by Judge Joel Bantasan, the court dismissed the fraud charges for insufficiency of evidence. It also granted three separate demurrers to evidence filed by respondents Lee, his son Dexter Lee, Christina Iliarte Sagun, Christina Salagan, and lawyer Alex Madriña Alvarez.
A demurrer to evidence is, in effect, a motion to dismiss filed by the accused after the prosecution finished its presentation of evidence. The demurrer is anchored on the ground that the evidence presented by the prosecution is insufficient.
The case stemmed from the syndicated estafa case filed by the Department of Justice, which accused Lee and the four others of defrauding Pag-Ibig members in housing loans used in Global Asiatique’s projects in Bacolor and Mabalacat towns in Pampanga through “special buyers” amounting to P6,653,546,000 from 2008 to 2011.
In 2012, the Supreme Court, however, downgraded the charge from syndicated estafa, a nonbailable criminal offense and punishable by life imprisonment, to simple estafa and remanded the case to the RTC.
Lee was arrested in 2014 but was allowed by the high court to post bail in 2018.
Insufficient proof
In a statement, Lee’s lawyer Rony Garay welcomed the ruling, saying that “Globe Asiatique was engaged in legitimate real estate operations in response to the government’s call for private-sector participation in low-cost housing.”The court, in its decision, stated that it found no evidence proving that the company or the accused sourced public funds through illegal means.
“The prosecution failed to establish the elements of the crime of estafa under Article 315 (2)(a) of the RPC [Revised Penal Code], or any lesser offense necessarily included therein which warrant the dismissal of this criminal action on demurrer,” the decision read.
The court added that “[t]here is then no factual basis to conclude that any breach of warranty or warranties by Globe Asiatique and/or its officers and employees amounts to or equivalent fraud or false pretense making them criminally liable. The remedy for breach of warranties were already stipulated. By providing for remedy of buyback for any breach of warranty, the remedy for any breach becomes civil in nature.”
The court also negated the existence of “special buyers” through records of buyer-borrowers. It added that there is “not enough evidence to prove that Globe Asiatique adopted the so called ‘special buyer scheme’ purposely engaging in falsification of identity, and engaging in bogus/fake buyers to support the release of its FCLs.”
Aside from this, the court ruled that there is insufficient proof that Alvarez committed estafa by notarizing documents for the company.
Anomalous scheme
In August 2010, the Inquirer ran a two-part series about the alleged scheme.
Several Pag-Ibig Fund employees blew the lid on the scam, alleging that Globe Asiatique paid people to enroll themselves as Pag-Ibig members under the so-called Special Working Group program to avail themselves of the housing loans.
Documents obtained by the Inquirer showed that between March 2008 and August 2010, Globe Asiatique took out P7.031 billion for 9,951 housing loan accounts from the Pag-Ibig Fund on behalf of its Pampanga applicants for its Xevera Homes in Bacolor and Mabalacat towns.
In October 2010, it was revealed that of the 9,951 self-employed Pag-Ibig members who were qualified and approved by Globe Asiatique, 400 of the borrowers denied applying for housing loans, 1,000 could not be located and 200 had incomplete documentary requirements. The “bad” loans amount to about P1.1 billion.
Lee denied allegations of wrongdoing and persistently sought relief from courts. He eventually secured a favorable ruling from the Court of Appeals (CA) in November 2013, which lifted the arrest warrant issued against him by the Pampanga RTC.
With the dismissal of the complaint against Alvarez and Sagun, which left Lee, Dexter Lee, and Salagan as three remaining accused, the CA held that the crime of syndicated estafa may no longer apply against the remaining accused since the law requires at least five accused in a syndicated estafa case.
On March 6, 2014, after hiding for two years, Lee was arrested by the Philippine National Police Task Force Tugis at the lobby of the Hyatt Hotel in Manila by virtue of a warrant of arrest issued by the Pampanga RTC.
In July 2018, the Supreme Court ordered the downgrading of charges against Lee from syndicated estafa to simple estafa, a bailable offense.
In September 2018, Delfin Lee was released after posting a P120,000 bail.
Lee later reached out to Pag-Ibig Fund officials to help the community that his company developed in Mabalacat, Pampanga. He offered to talk with the HDMF to resolve obligation issues involving homeowners in subdivisions developed by his firm there and in Bacolor town. —WITH A REPORT FROM INQUIRER RESEARCH
