Pag-IBIG head calls Trillanes claims baseless

MANILA, Philippines - The president of the Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-IBIG Fund) branded as baseless Sen. Antonio Trillanes IV’s latest allegations that the agency favors contractors supposedly identified with Vice President Jejomar Binay.

Trillanes on Monday said the Vice President was being investigated for involvement in allegedly anomalous transactions in the Pag-Ibig Fund.

Binay is the concurrent chairman of the Housing and Urban Development Coordinating Council (HUDCC).

Pag-IBIG Fund president and chief executive officer Darlene Marie Berberabe also welcomed any investigation on the alleged irregularities in the awarding of contracts to developers.

“In the strongest terms, I deny that Pag-IBIG Fund favors any stakeholder. On the contrary, we pride ourselves with having leveled the playing field when the new management and the new board assumed office in 2010,” Berberabe said in a statement.

“If we are favoring just a few, we will not earn the trust of our housing partners and Pag-IBIG members,” she said.

Berberabe said the agency has instituted reforms since 2010 to ensure that there will be no repeat of housing scams such as the P6-billion Globe Asiatique (GA) mess.

In 2010, she said Pag-IBIG Fund filed a syndicated estafa case against GA president Delfin Lee and cohorts, which led to the prosecution of several GA officers and a Pag-IBIG employee.

“Even if such reforms were not popular, we made them happen because we were focused on doing what is right for the Fund that is owned by our members,” Berberabe said.