Globe Asiatique

Globe Asiatique

Globe Asiatique

“This prompted Pag-IBIG to file an urgent motion to resolve the pending issues, but to no avail. In addition to the legal moves in RTC Pasig, Pag-Ibig also filed an Administrative Complaint against Judge Mislang before the Supreme Court for rendering the unlawful and unjust order,” he added. Pag-IBIG pampered Globe Asiatique
BLURBAL THRUSTS
Louie Logarta
The Daily Tribune, 03/24/2011


During its lengthy discourse in its Sunday edition on the shameful multibillion-peso scandal that is the Globe Asiatique-Pag-IBIG housing deal, the broadsheet The Manila Times which is published by our good friend Dr. Dante Ang had one glaring omission that astounds.

It is the fact that former Vice President Noli de Castro and incumbent Marikina Rep. Miro Quimbo were both at the helm of the state housing agency when this sorry excuse for a real estate developer Globe Asiatique Realty Holdings Corp. was permitted to “take out” some P6.6 billion in loans and other forms of financial support for its ambitious Xevera and Hanjin housing projects in Pampanga.

De Castro was appointed as the country’s “housing czar” in 2004 by President Arroyo, and as such supervised the Pag-IBIG Fund and other related companies, a position he held until June 30, 2010.

On the other hand, Quimbo was the president and chief executive officer of the Fund, since the time of Secretary Michael Defensor who preceded De Castro, until his resignation in 2009 reportedly to pursue a political career.

Immediately after being appointed by President Aquino in July 2010 as head of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council and Pag-IBIG, Vice President Jojo Binay ordered a full-scale probe into the huge loans availed of by GA after being apprised by staffers of the existence of a big number of ghost borrowers who were able to purchase units in Xevera Homes in Mabalacat, Pampanga. This was subsequently denied by GA.

The scam, soon after, hit the roof after an enterprising Central Luzon reporter came out with a series of stories detailing the alleged shenanigans perpetrated by GA in cahoots with their confederates in Pag-IBIG which had deprived several thousand legitimate borrowers (including the members of the National Press Club whose housing project has been in limbo since 2003) the opportunity of owning their dream homes, thereby prompting a Senate probe into the sensational allegations.

Sen. Serge Osmeña, chairman of the Senate committee on banks, financial institutions and currencies, said that at the least Pag-IBIG officers at the operational level could be answerable for the questionable GA loans.

“The evidence of fraud is overwhelming,” Osmeña said, citing documents furnished the committee. Responding to queries on the possible liability of certain Pag-IBIG officers, he replied: “Everybody who is on the board; and if Noli (De Castro) is on the board, then yes.”

Osmeña pointed out to Senate reporters that there were indeed indications that Pag-IBIG favored GA in the two aforementioned housing projects in Pampanga.

While the normal limit of funding commitment is P500 million per developer, Pag-IBIG officials went overboard (for obvious reasons, meaning money, but this couldn’t be proven because no one is willing to talk) by allowing GA to borrow “10 times more.”

Pag-IBIG officials had disclosed that since 1997, some P12.6 billion in housing loans were released to GA making it the most successful developer in the history of the Fund, because no one else comes close to the amounts it was able to wangle from the government.

Addressing the Subdivision and Housing Developers Association some months ago, VP Binay promised to institute strictures in their existing single-borrower-limit to prevent a repeat of the sad GA experience.

He disclosed that GA in fact was supposed to have gotten another P6 billion in the second semester of 2010 for another project in Zambales, but this was foiled after Pag-IBIG auditors discovered the existence of a slew of alleged ghost borrowers in the Xevera housing projects in Pampanga.

In October 2010, Pag-IBIG finally wrote finis to its long (and extremely profitable for certain d!ckheads) business relationship with GA after Binay ordered it placed on the inglorious blacklist, to include several affiliate companies and key officers. As it did so, the Fund canceled the Funding Commitment Line earlier granted to GA whereby the developer could no longer secure loans for its projects and had it stricken from the list of accredited developers so it would not be able to enter into official dealings with the agency with regard to the processing and release of housing loans for members.

As of this writing, the National Bureau of Investigation, upon the instigation of Binay, had filed three cases against GA and several of its top officers for syndicated estafa constituting economic sabotage before the Department of Justice in connection with several allegedly anomalous housing projects.

Syndicated estafa is a non-bailable offense.

In its complaint before the Department of Justice, Pag-IBIG described GA and cohorts as “a syndicate consisting of more than five persons coming together with the intention of carrying out defraudation resulting in the misappropriation of monies contributed by Pag-IBIG members to the Pag-IBIG Fund.”

Adding to their headaches, the Rizal Commercial Banking Corp. (RCBC) was reported to be initiating the foreclosure on the flagship 38-story GA Tower in Mandaluyong, resulting from the decision of Pag-IBIG to place it on its blacklist. RCBC had lent around P2.5 billion to Globe Asiatique for this project.

The Philippine National Bank, which is supposed to have loaned P1.5 billion to GA in 2006, has reportedly filed a P1-billion collection case against the troubled real estate firm after it had defaulted in several scheduled amortizations.