Pampanga court issues HDO vs. Delfin Lee, co-accused

By OVP Media
April 4, 2013

MANILA – A Hold Departure Order (HDO) has been issued against Globe Asiatique Realty Holdings Corp. (GA) owner Delfin Lee and four others involved in the GA housing scam, Vice President Jejomar C. Binay announced today.

The Vice President said the HDO against Lee was issued by Judge Amifaith Fider-Reyes of Branch 42 of the Pampanga Regional Trial Court in an order dated March 25 and released on April 3, the same court trying the syndicated estafa case against Lee.

Aside from Lee, also included in the HDO were his son Dexter, GA officers Christina Sagun and Cristina Salagan, and Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-IBIG Fund or HDMF) official Alex Alvarez.

The housing czar hailed the issuance of the HDO as “another victory for our kababayans who were defrauded of their hard-earned money.”

“This is a very welcome development. We are very hopeful that this will advance our demand for Delfin Lee to pay for his crimes," Binay said.

“We just hope that the hold departure order would aid our law enforcement authorities. We do not want to think that Delfin Lee has evaded justice. Despite the P2 million reward offered by the President for his capture, Lee and his co-accused remain at large," he added.

The Vice President is the chairman of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC) and chairman of the board of Pag-IBIG Fund.

In ruling for the issuance of the HDO, the court noted that the charge against Lee and his co-accused was a non-bailable offense.

It also noted that the Supreme Court has ruled that “the activity of subdivision and condominium development which is under the HLURB (Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board) involves ‘public interest and welfare.’”

“Thus, it is public interest and public welfare that is served when the Hold Departure Order is issued against those who have to account for the alleged misuse of funds that were availed from the HLURB and that should have been dedicated to the real beneficiaries of the low-cost housing projects,” Fider-Reyes ruled in her decision.

“As for any constitutional right to travel that [the five accused] may have been entitled to, this should now give way to the public interest and public welfare that is vested in the instant proceedings,” the judge further ruled.

The Court of Appeals (CA) also recently stopped a Makati City judge from implementing its earlier rulings favoring Lee.

The case against the GA owner stemmed from the purported anomalous loans amounting to more than P7 billion granted by Pag-ibig Fund to “ghost borrowers” who had allegedly bought homes in GA’s Xevera Housing project in Mabalacat, Pampanga.