SHOWDOWN ON SUBIC’S GREEN
SBMA vs. Taiwan UIG
Can a tenant stop a landlord from kicking him out? Can a foreign investor in an economic zone stay on without keeping its side of the agreement with the state?
Can a tenant stop a landlord from kicking him out? Can a foreign investor in an economic zone stay on without keeping its side of the agreement with the state?
News in the print and broadcast media has mainly made the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority look bad for its takeover of the Subic Bay Golf and Country Club. It also terminated the agreement it had with SBGCC’s mother company, Taiwan’s Universal International Group Development Corp. (UIGDC).
The SBMA looks bad because the media reports have made it seem to treat foreign investors oppressively. That is partly because the main officer of UIG is also the president of the Subic Bay Taiwan Chamber of Commerce.
The Internet has websites showing videos of the takeover. The written captions are designed to view the SBMA as awful people. One says “Taiwan people see Filipinos as kidnappers and monkeys without hair.” The videos do not show any “fully armed and combat-ready Law Enforcement Department” troops sent by SBMA to bodily evict the BGCC officers and employees.
As the SBMA officials keep saying, this is all a matter of a contract dispute.
Writing to President Arroyo to explain the case, SBMA Chairman Commodore Feli-ciano G. Salonga and Administrator Armand C. Arreza, said, “We wish to assure Her Excellency that the matter between SBMA and UIGDC/SBGCC is merely a contractual dispute and does not in anyway jeopardize the stability and security of the investment climate in the Freeport. The bottom-line in SBMA’s actions against the said entity is the protection of government’s fair share of revenues and development commitments, as allowing UIGDC/SBGCC to continue operating the facility would simply be less than ideal governance to the great disadvantage of government.”
Before the takeover on June 8, the SBMA received a writ of preliminary injunction from the Regional Trial Court, Branch 74, Olongapo City, enjoining SBMA from implementing its threat of issuing a cease and desist order against UIGDC/SBGCC.
Many lawyers believe the SBMA did not violate any court order in taking over the golf course. The action was merely an exercise of SBMA’s rights as lessor when it terminated the lease agreement and recovered the properties of the whole facility without imposing its regulatory power to cancel UIGDC/SBGCC’s permit to operate.
The takeover of SBGCC was approved by the SBMA Board on the same day.
“SBMA was merely protecting the interest of government in view of UIGDC/SBGCC’s continued failure to settle its unpaid and uncontested obligations without any payment scheme amounting to P16.8 million and US$352,269.08. Its total arrears, in March, including those with payment schemes, stood at P37.7 million, in addition to its contested obligations amounting to US$2.12 million and P9.95 million,” Salonga and Arreza say.
Arreza cites other violations by UIGDC/SBGCC of its Lease Development Agreement (LDA) with SBMA: unfulfilled development commitments since 1996, as well as various violations of labor, health, sanitation and environmental laws.
He also says it must not be forgotten “that SBMA has repeatedly bent over backward to make UIGDC/SBGCC’s business viable” through the years.
On three occasions SBMA, Arreza stresses, has agreed on compromise amendments to the LDA, making its provisions more lenient so that UIG and BGCC can more easily pay arrears and fulfill commitments.
UIG and SBGCC basically do not seem to dispute the claims of SBMA that they have failed to pay their arrears and current debts to the government and that they have fully live up to their contractual commitments.
What they claim is their right to be given all the opportunities to enjoy “due process.”
The latest in this case is that UIG has filed a motion to the court to order SBMA to vacate the golf course. SBMA has filed its opposition to that motion.
About two weeks ago, UIG filed a new motion asking the court to admit an amended complaint in which SBMA officials will be impleaded as additional defendants. Right now the defendant is only SBMA, a government agency.
SBMA has until tomorrow, Monday, to file its opposition to the new UIG motion.
The showdown on the green continues.
--Rene Q. Bas - Manila Times
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posted by OlongapoCity Zambales at
7:46 AM
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