The government-owned Development Bank of the Philippines has denied writing off loans of the Lopez Group of Companies two decades ago.
During the House Committee on Good Governance hearing on Monday, January 18, DBP President Emmanuel Herbosa belied allegations about the bank’s written off or condoned loans by the Lopez Group of Companies in the early 2000’2.
According to Herbosa, Lopez’s loans were not written off but sold to the Lehman Brothers based on Republic Act No. 9182 or the SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle) Act of 2002.
“These NPLs (non-performing loans) and NPAs (non-performing assets) were dealt with in the regular course of business and disposed of by DBP pursuant to Republic Act No. 9182, entitled The Special Purpose Vehicles Act of 2002, as amended by RA No. 9343 and other applicable laws, which authorized financial institutions, like DBP to transfer NPLs and NPAs to SPVs (special purpose vehicles) created under the Act.
“The law provided the avenue for Philippine banks to dispose [of] non-performing assets to be more liquid…. It’s not a loan condonation, we sold it with a P3.83-billion bid in favor of DBP,” said Herbosa.
These loans have been one of the subjects or issues raised against ABS-CBN during the franchise renewal hearing.
Some of the prominent DDS bloggers like Thinking Pinoy and fake news king Jay Sonza who opposed the ABS-CBN franchise renewal used the topic to discredit the network. Other DDS propagandists also pounded on the issue to gain more hate towards the Kapamilya network.
PRRD TO OPPOSE ABS-CBN'S CONGRESSIONAL FRANCHISE RENEWAL DUE TO P1.67 BILLION IN UNPAID LOANS FROM GOVERNMENT-OWNED DBP
Citing massive unpaid loans from the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP), Pres. Rody Duterte on 06 March 2019 said he will oppo… https://t.co/3Fl1UMLFQQ pic.twitter.com/oB9cAf8xrr
— ThinkingPinoy (@ThinkingPinoyPH) March 7, 2019
“duterte to abs cbn – magkusa kayo. bayaran nyo muna lahat ng atraso nyo sa gobyerno: tax deficits, unpaid and unremitted sss/philhealth/pagibig dues, dbp loans. or kiss your franchise and permit to operate GOOD BYE!” Sonza tweeted in 2019.
duterte to abs cbn – magkusa kayo. bayaran nyo muna lahat ng atraso nyo sa gobyerno: tax deficits, unpaid and unremitted sss/philhealth/pagibig dues, dbp loans. or kiss your franchise and permit to operate GOOD BYE!
— Jay Sonza (@JaySonza3) March 6, 2019
Meanwhile, DBP Senior Vice President Soraya Adiong also denies any irregularity on Lopez’s loans citing annual audit report from COA.
“It was audited by the Commission on Audit and in the annual audit report, there was no finding of irregularity,” said DBP Senior Vice President Soraya Adiong.
“As soon as the accounts were transferred to the SPV (special purpose vehicles) DBP no longer had any transaction, at least with respect to those four loan accounts,” Adiong added.
