Roberto Ongpin to help bring in more foreign investments to Philippines

MANILA, Philippines—Businessman Roberto V. Ongpin has vowed to bring in more foreign investments into the country despite an apparent crackdown on his loan contract with the state-owned Development Bank of the Philippines.

In a press statement on Thursday, the former trade minister said he refused to be sidetracked by the case filed against him and former and current DBP officials at the Office of the Ombudsman.

“I brought in so much investments into this country and I will keep doing it no matter how much they try to shoot me down,” said Ongpin, leader of five publicly listed companies.  The five companies are Alphaland Corp., Philweb Corp., Philippine Bank of Communication, ISM Communications and Atok Big Wedge.

Ongpin is also the local partner of the London-based fund management giant Ashmore group, which has $2 billion investments in the Philippines. Ongpin also has interests in San Miguel Corp., Petron Corp. and Manila Electric Co.

The businessman lamented that the case filed against him and 27 other individuals was meant to distract the public from the suicide of former DBP lawyer Benjamin Pinpin last August 2, which prompted President Benigno Aquino III to order the Department of Finance to look into the handling of the investigation by the new DBP board.

“It’s a very sad situation. It’s really sad because it’s a smokescreen to divert attention from the suicide of this man whom they coerced to write an affidavit… It’s clearly a smokescreen,” Ongpin said.

Ongpin’s lawyer, Alex Poblador, earlier said his client would face the investigation to clear his name and expressed confidence that the case filed with the Ombudsman would be dismissed for lack of merit.

The new DBP board claimed the P660-million loan extended to Ongpin during the previous administration was “behest,” an allegation, which Ongpin vehemently denied.

Aside from the DBP loan, Ongpin said he had also borrowed over P3 billion from five other banks for the purchase of shares of Philex Mining Corp. under his Delta Venture Resources Inc. in 2009.

All loans were legal, totally secured and paid ahead of maturity, he said. In the case of DBP, it made P4 million in interest income alone from the two loan transactions and approximately P1.3 billion in the trading of Philex shares that enabled the state-owned bank to post record profits in 2009.

As early as 2007, Ongpin explained, he made a “conscious decision” that the Philex shares were undervalued.

“I was bullish on metal prices so I started accumulating shares,” he said. “The first block I bought was about five percent and I bought it from Banco de Oro because they had a block which they inherited when they merged with PCI bank. And I just kept on accumulating. I borrowed money from banks because I believed in them.”