‘Love deals’ at Pag-IBIG?

Here’s one which the Office of the President and the soon-to-be-organized Truth Commission and even the fact-finding unit of the Ombudsman may want to look into soonest.

Records show that the state-owned Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-IBIG Fund) approved 400 applications for a housing project in Pampanga, which turned out to have been taken by “ghost borrowers” (the named borrowers have denied ever having taken out any loans and were alleged to have been tricked into signing the “loan applications” in exchange for cash). Apparently, some sly brokers took advantage of the friendly financing terms at the housing finance agency (low interest rates with up to 30 years’ repayment) used the “fast lane” window reserved for developers of good standing to dupe Pag-IBIG of millions in trust funds. The developer, Globe Asiatique, owned by a certain Delfin Lee, has since denied any participation in this decidedly despicable operation, saying his company may have been “infiltrated by people who had been securing doubtful loan accounts.”

Which brings us to the question: If 400 “ghost borrowers” received millions of pesos from Pag-IBIG using just one developer in good standing, how many more such “borrowers” are in the books of the agency? Remember that Pag-IBIG has had a very interesting (some say incredible) growth rate of 42 percent in terms of loans approved and monies disbursed from 2007 to 2009. Last year the Fund disbursed P46 billion, up by P12 billion from the 2008 total of P34 billion and more than double that of the 2007 total of P22 billion. For now, more than 70 percent of Pag-IBIG’s P258 billion in assets are in housing-related undertakings, more than the mandated percentage as provided by law. The revelation that a “love deal” involving 400 “recipients” has been uncovered there is reason to believe that a good part of the agency’s assets may be considered “ghost” or nonexistent. If that is the case, then we are in for big, big trouble, especially since under the new Pag-IBIG law, the agency is not supposed to just provide housing loans but the members’ provident claims, as well. If we don’t watch out, we may end up like the Government Service Insurance System before 1997 or the Social Security System in some years where these agencies’ mandates were no longer sustainable as a result of grave abuse and massive dissipation of funds. Or, worse, booking of “non-existent” or less-than “Grade A” assets. It is good P-Noy has tasked each and every agency head to make an inventory of the agency’s assets, obligations and other such institutional underpinnings to make sure that their mandates can be undertaken and sustained for the public good.

Bombarding the set

The SET is, of course, the Senate Electoral Tribunal, which presides over any and all protests involving sitting members of the chamber. The workings of this deliberative body are in the news yet again as a result of the decision of its members by a vote of 6-2 to allow sitting Sen. Migs Zubiri to proceed with his counterprotest against original protestant lawyer Koko Pimentel which has taken all of three years to resolve. This “midnight” resolution, as former Senate Minority Leader Nene Pimentel calls it, smacks of politicking, explaining that the members of the Senate who voted to proceed with the initiative involving the “study” of the votes in 76,000 precincts nationwide have used the same as a leverage in the ongoing fight over the Senate presidency. Of course, Senator Zubiri and the others, including the Liberal Party bet for the presidency, Sen. Kiko Pangilinan, have denied such thing. But they have to contend with the dissenting opinion of the SET chairman, Senior Justice Antonio Carpio, who Pimented quoted as advising that “Zubiri did not even prove that he was cheated in 25 percent of his protested precincts. Even if he is allowed to proceed, his initial estimates indicate that even if he succeeds, there may only be about 45,000 questionable votes—not enough to overcome Kono’s lead of 258,000, which has been proven as such by the SET itself.” I will leave it to the parties to take their case to the SET and to the public. But the fact that the SET issued a gag order against the parties does not speak well of the manner by which this decision was taken. Worse, it does not overturn the lingering public perception that, indeed, Koko Pimentel has been deprived of his rights. As Justice Carpio so emphatically advised: “…the counterprotest should be dismissed and Pimentel be declared the winner….” The incoming Senate leadership and the new SET should take these things to heart… –J.A. de la Cruz / Coast-to-Coast, businessmirror