CA: Asiatique can sue Pag-IBIG for damages

MANILA, Philippines - The Court Appeals (CA) upheld a Makati court’s ruling that real estate developer Globe Asiatique (GA) has a cause of action for “specific performance and damages” against Pag-IBIG Fund, also known as the Home Development Mutual Fund, and its board of trustees in connection with the land scam allegation made by HDMF.

The HDMF earlier alleged that GA obtained some P6.65 billion worth of housing loans from the government through “ghost borrowers.”

In a decision released on Oct. 12, the CA’s first division dismissed a petition for review filed by HDMF president and CEO Darlene Marie Berberabe and board of trustees chairman and Vice President Jejomar Binay.

The two officials accused Makati Regional Trial Court Branch 58 Judge Eugene Paras of grave abuse of discretion for junking Berberabe’s motion to dismiss a civil case filed by GA and its owner, Delfin Lee, against HDMF, deputy chief executive officer Emma Linda Faria and the agency’s board of trustees.

The CA said Berberabe and the board of trustees can be held personally liable for the damages sustained by GA, noting that the HDMF “acted with malice and bad faith” by failing to accept the replacement of delinquent buyers and borrowers by GA, which are part of the memorandum of agreement and funding commitment agreement.

Paras ruled last Jan. 30 that the HDMF and its board of trustees are guilty of breaching the two agreements.

“The introduction of any evidence by defendant HDMF regarding the alleged spurious and fictitious buyers-borrowers becomes inconsequential, immaterial, and irrelevant as it is the one which approved their Pag-IBIG membership, approved their loan applications and supposedly post-validated their eligibility for loans,” the judge said.