Friday, September 16, 2011

Boracay Scam - Prosecution or persecution?


Prosecution or persecution?
HIDDEN AGENDA By Mary Ann Ll. Reyes (The Philippine Star) Updated September 14, 2011 12:00 AM Comments (4) View comments


The Pasig Regional Trial Court has just issued a writ of preliminary injunction preventing the Department of Justice from filing a criminal case for estafa against Globe Asiatique president Delfin Lee pending the resolution of a civil case for specific performance and damages filed by Lee against the Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-Ibig).
According to Judge Rolando Mislang, the issues involved in the civil case now pending before a Makati Court bear a direct relation to the estafa charges which Pag-Ibig and the National Bureau of Investigation have filed before the Department of Justice in such a way that the issues therein which are intimately related will determine whether or not the criminal actions may proceed.
In legal parlance, this is what is called as a prejudicial question. Under the Rules of Court, a petition for suspension of the criminal action based upon the pendency of a prejudicial question in a civil action may be filed. There is a preliminary question when the previously instituted civil action involves an issue similar or intimately related to the issue raised in the subsequent criminal action, and the resolution of such issue determines whether or not the criminal action may proceed.
Judge Mislang’s action has raised quite a number of eyebrows, especially of those in government who want to see Lee behind bars. But what is raising more eyebrows are the circumstances surrounding the investigation of the complaint filed by the NBI and HDMF against Lee and Globe Asiatique before the DOJ.
The complaint against Lee and others before the DOJ Task Force on Securities and Business Scam was heard for a period of eight months by a panel that included senior assistant state prosecutor Ma. Emilia Victorio and assistant state prosecutors Bryan Jacinto Cacha, Susan Villanueva, Edmundo Magpantay, and Rohaira Tamano.
After eight months of hearing and thoroughly evaluating the evidence and documents on hand, the panel recommended that a simple estafa case be filed against Lee and two other GA executives. The offense is bailable.
However, when the task force chair and senior deputy state prosecutor Theodore Villanueva reviewed the draft resolution, he revised the panel’s recommendation from simple estafa to syndicated estafa, which is non-bailable.
Besides Lee and the two other GA executives, Villanueva recommended the inclusion of Lee’s son Dexter and a Pag-Ibig lawyer, making them five which is a requisite for syndicated estafa.
Observers are now questioning Villanueva’s basis for overturning the panel’s recommendation. They are asking what Villanueva could have seen that the panel of five prosecutors did not. They also wonder whether the late inclusion of Dexter Lee and the Pag-Ibig lawyer was a mere legal maneuver to fulfill the requisite for syndicated estafa, and whether Villanueva and Prosecutor General Claro Arellano who approved the review resolution are getting instructions from someone else.
It will be recalled that Villanueva himself signed the resolution of the panel recommending simple estafa only to change it later to syndicated estafa.
According to the NBI and Pag-Ibig, the respondents conspired to use “ghost” borrowers to obtain more than P6 billion in loans from Pag-IBIG to finance the purchase by these borrowers of GA’s housing units at the Xevera project in Pampanga.
Boracay land scam
Boracay may be one of the country’s jewels but with the rate things are going in terms of complaints by foreign tourists of alleged harassment committed by our government personnel, then that distinction may no longer hold true for long.              
It is being claimed that the recent arrest and deportation of an American businessman by the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group and the Bureau of Immigration and Deportation was actually related to the recent dismissal of criminal cases filed in the Kalibo RTC by a Filipina balikbayan named Joan (not her real name) against a German national who owns a subdivision in Boracay.
The case involves a P15-million villa in Boracay and the amount of P8 million which changed hands among lawyers handling both sides of the case.
According to Joan in her affidavit, what is painful is that some unscrupulous people made use of the arrest/detention of her boyfriend as a leverage to demand the withdrawal of the complaint/ case that Joan filed against Ms X (the German national) and her cohorts.
She says the arrest and deportation of her boyfriend may be proper, but to use it as a means to blackmail her into withdrawing her complaint is another thing.
In 2010, Joan filed a civil case against a subdivision company and several others for the recovery of possession of her property in Boracay which she purchased for P15 million from the said company in 2008. She then filed a case for damages and indemnity for the harassment of the said corporation/its officers; the neighborhood association in Boracay, among others, with the RTC of Aklan.
In 2009, Joan filed a case with the HLURB against the subdivision firm for unfair and irregular real estate business practices, even as she sought a refund on the purchase price.
On May 5, 2011, while still in Barcelona, Spain doing business, she received news that her boyfriend was arrested and detained by immigration authorities in the Philippines. She returned to Manila and discovered that he was detained at Camp Bagong Diwa in Bicutan.
His arrest/detention was in relation to an alleged warrant of arrest issued against him by government authorities in Brazil. Joan however claims that no copy of the warrant of arrest has ever been shown to them by the BID or by the police authorities.
At that point, Joan had already suspected that her boyfriend’s arrest had something to do with her Boracay property and the cases she filed in court. This was confirmed by her lawyer, who upon calling the counsel for the other party, said that the latter just wanted her to withdraw the cases filed in Aklan as part of the package.
Her lawyer also informed her of the other counsel’s threat “to do something bad with her and her family, including her two brothers if the case will not be withdrawn and if she does not stop from further complaining regarding her purchase of the Boracay property from the subdivision company.
Meanwhile, Joan claims she had to eke out more than P8 million for the release of her boyfriend from immigration detention. After her boyfriend’s deportation, she said they tried to take from her the P15-million villa in Boracay so she was forced to fight back.
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Thursday, September 15, 2011

LOLONG BUWAYA


LOLONG BUWAYA
A giant crocodile was recently discovered at Agusan del Sur. Experts say that this is the biggest crocodile caught worldwide thus far. Authorities even officially give a name to this crocodile. A few days ago, they decided to call him "LOLONG BUWAYA". According to the locals, they are yet looking for a bigger crocodile still on the loose – the female counterpart of ‘Lolong’.
Actually, there is another crocodile moving around in the country much bigger and rapacious than ‘LOLONG’ of Agusan. And incidentally, his name is ‘LOLONG’ also. His habitat is at Makati City.
'LOLONG' of Makati partners in crime aside from the members of his law firm, includes Atty. 'LOLONG TSINOY' of the MOST reputable law firm of the Philippines, an equally avaricious and predatory lawyer, whose insatiable greed for money could only be matched by his almost unquenchable passion for sex especially with elderly widows of German nationals.
Official record shows that cases handled by the MOST reputable firm of the Philippines are being protected and assured of satisfactory results by the firm’s godfather and patron, the Honorable 'LOLONG SUPREMO', from the Office of the President of the Philippines.
If u have any case, any case at all, that needs legal services of an attorney, however foul or underserved it may be, you may contact any of the above named lawyers, and provided you have unlimited money to pay, we assure you of guaranteed highly gratifying results. The entire government machinery shall be at our disposal. No questions asked. Money talks.