Mali intindi ni Rody! Lawmaker says sorry to Duterte: House panel ain’t stopping probe on Lopez group’s DBP loans

The chairman of the House committee on good government and public accountability apologized to President Rodrigo Duterte Wednesday (February 17) for thinking that lawmakers will no longer investigate the Lopez group’s loans, which were allegedly condoned by the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP).

DIWA party-list Rep. Michael Aglipay clarified that his committee only suspended the hearing on the Lopez group’s loans to DBP after the initial hearing on January 18 to give time to the parties concerned to submit the documents needed by lawmakers.

“Mr. President, I am sincerely sorry. And may I humbly request for your forgiveness for the inconvenience that we may have caused you by reason of these hearings,” Aglipay said at the resumption of the hearing.

“If I may again respectfully emphasize, the hearing was never terminated, only suspended,” he added.

Aglipay blamed opponents of House Speaker Lord Allan Jay Velasco for supposedly misinforming the President about the House hearing.

“The allegations that Speaker Velasco and this Committee are protectors of the

Lopezes are nothing but absolute lies made with malicious intent,” he said.

Duterte mentioned the Lopez group’s DBP loans in a February 8 speech as he vowed to block ABS-CBN’s bid to return to free television.

“Unless and until mabayaran ng mga Lopez ang taxes nila, I will not — I will ignore your franchise and I will not give them the license to operate. Kalokohan ‘yan. Parang binigyan mo sila ng prize for their being — for committing criminal acts,” the President said.

DBP president Emmanuel Herbosa denied in the first hearing that the bank wrote off loans of companies owned by the Lopez group. He said the disposal of the non-performing loans (NPLs) and non-performing assets (NPAs) of the conglomerate was in line with Republic Act No. 9182 or The Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) Act of 2002.

The law allows banks to unload their NPLs and NPas to an SPV, a company that will invest or acquire the bad loans and assets.

Herbosa said the loans were sold to Lehman Brothers Asia Ltd. for P3.83 billion through a bidding.

Source: Latest Politics News Today (Politics.com.ph)