Homeowners ally with leftist groups

Thursday, January 08, 2009

ATTEMPTING to strengthen its force against foreclosure of its home mortgages by Balikatan Housing Finance Inc. (BHFI), the Davao City Federation of Homeowners Associations (DCFHA) has allied with Bayan Muna and Kadamay, an urban poor organization associated with the militants.

Councilor Danilo Dayanghirang, DCFHA founding chairman said, they met with Bayan Muna leader Joel Virador Monday and the latter agreed to help.

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"We are separating the advocacy from the legal issues. Bayan Muna will focus more on the advocacy of stopping the foreclosures and having a resolution to the whole problem. The legal area naman will be handled by us and the lawyer provided by the city," Dayanghirang said.

He added that Mayor Rodrigo Duterte has already granted him permission to fly to Manila Thursday to personally follow up their appeal to President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo which was coursed through Secretary Silvestre Bello III.

"I will also be gathering documents as we are also pushing for the review of the concept of how Balikatan operates as well as its creation," Dayanghirang said.

Dayanghirang added they do not fear to be branded as left-wingers due to the alliance.

"It is a question of a specific issue, not political stand. Anybody who can and is willing to help, dawaton na namo. Asa man diay mi magayo ug tabang (we will welcome. Where else will we ask help from)? Of course not from the rich people there in Congress. We seek help from those who understand the plight of the poor who are now standing to lose their homes," Dayanghirang said.

Officers of DCFHA present during the interview said about 70 homeowners in Luzville Subdivision in Panacan have already been driven out of their homes.

Buyers of the foreclosed properties reportedly showed up with the sheriff and asked the present occupant to leave.

The BHFI is foreclosing 6,000 homes of delinquent homeowners in the city.

Research on the controversial Balikatan showed it was created sometime in 2004 along with Bahay Financing Services Inc. (BFSI) to help resolve the backlog in mortgage payments in the housing sector.

BFSI was created for servicing, management, and administration of mortgage loans and related collateral property in the Philippines held by BHFI, a holding company set up and owned by DB Real Estate Global Opportunities IB, LP (DBGO) and National Home Mortgage Finance Corporation (NHMFC).

BHFI even received a P1.6-billion loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in May 2005 to help NHMFC collect highly delinquent mortgage loans.

An ADB press release dated May 31, 2005 stated that the non-performing liabilities (NPL) portfolio sold by NHMFC has a total outstanding principal balance of P13.45 billion.

These are from 53,000 individual low- and middle-class housing loans in 500 housing subdivisions all over the country.

"In May 2004, following a competitive auction, DBGO signed a loan sale purchase agreement with NHMFC. DBGO, a $360 million fund that invests globally in real estate and real estate-related assets, is managed by DB Real Estate, the real estate asset management arm of Deutsche Bank AG. Managing more than $56 billion, DB Real Estate is the world's largest real estate fund manager based on assets under management," the press release stated.

In the 2007 Annual Report of the ADB, it recalled how and why BFSI and BHFI were created.

The report said what prompted the creation was NHMFC's difficulty in collecting mortgage payments from those who took out low- and middle-income housing units starting in the late 1980s.

"As the houses were built, NHMFC purchased the mortgage-secured loans extended to home buyers by accredited financial institutions and housing developers using funds borrowed from the Social Security System, Government Service Insurance System, and Home Development Mutual Fund (Pag-IBIG), the funders," the report said.

But low repayment rates snowballed, thus by 1996, uncollected loan accounts made the funders give more support.

The highly delinquent loans were auctioned off in May 2004 and the DB Real Estate Global Opportunities IB, L.P. (DBGO) won the bid.

"ADB provided debt financing of up to $33 million to Balikatan Housing Finance Inc., the special-purpose vehicle jointly owned by DBGO and NHMFC and which acquired the nonperforming loans from NHMFC. ADB also invested in a 10 percent equity stake in Bahay Financial Services Inc., a loan-servicing company established by DBGO to restructure and service the loans in behalf of Balikatan Housing Finance. A Philippine-peso bond issue -- a first for ADB -- provided the necessary funding," the report said.

"This transaction marked the first time that a local financial entity had sold nonperforming assets (NPAs) of such magnitude to a foreign investor, and showed domestic and international investors that the country was determined to solve its NPA problem," the report continued.

The portion about the NHMFC auction of the NPAs was highlighted in the non-sovereign operations portion of the report as an example of how ADB assisted in "dealing with non-performing loans to bolster housing in the Philippines."

Source: Sunstar