Palafox accused of breach of confidentiality
SUBIC BAY FREEPORT – An official of the Korean firm planning to build a $120-million casino-hotel here assailed architect and urban planner Felino Palafox Jr. for breaking their agreement’s confidentiality.
“We are deeply disappointed that our former architect, Felino Palafox Jr., began criticizing our Subic project in the media and using documents of our company,” Eric Ghi-Buhm Park, executive manager of Grand Utopia, said in a statement.
“By coming out in the media and speaking before various public gatherings (while) criticizing our Subic project, the architect has committed a breach not only of the provisions of the subcontract agreement but also of professional ethics,” Park said.
He issued the statement after the special House committee on bases conversion opened last week its initial hearing on two resolutions seeking to look into allegations that some 300 trees would be cut to make way for the casino project, and that members of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority’s bids and awards committee had asked for kickbacks in the bidding for the freeport’s master development plan project.
Palafox denied Park’s allegations.
“What [Park] said was all wrong. If there was breach of contract here, then it happened on their side. A 20-person team from our firm worked from July to November last year without pay. When we billed them for the down payment and mobilization fund, a couple of times I might add, they asked me to sign on their designs. They wanted my signature before they would release the payments. We did not get a single centavo from them despite our work,” Palafox said.
Palafox’s campaign to save hundreds of trees in the hotel-casino project site has stirred controversy, forcing the SBMA to issue repeated assurances that not one tree would be cut or removed from the site.
Park said Yamasaki, architect of Grand Utopia, tapped Palafox’s firm, Palafox Associates, for the Subic project because the Filipino architect committed “to take charge of the environmental compliance certificate (ECC) and the environmental impact study (EIS).”
Park said Palafox signed the subcontract with Yamasaki on Sept. 22, 2008, two months before the groundbreaking for the project was held. By Robert Gonzaga - Philippine Daily Inquirer
“We are deeply disappointed that our former architect, Felino Palafox Jr., began criticizing our Subic project in the media and using documents of our company,” Eric Ghi-Buhm Park, executive manager of Grand Utopia, said in a statement.
“By coming out in the media and speaking before various public gatherings (while) criticizing our Subic project, the architect has committed a breach not only of the provisions of the subcontract agreement but also of professional ethics,” Park said.
He issued the statement after the special House committee on bases conversion opened last week its initial hearing on two resolutions seeking to look into allegations that some 300 trees would be cut to make way for the casino project, and that members of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority’s bids and awards committee had asked for kickbacks in the bidding for the freeport’s master development plan project.
Palafox denied Park’s allegations.
“What [Park] said was all wrong. If there was breach of contract here, then it happened on their side. A 20-person team from our firm worked from July to November last year without pay. When we billed them for the down payment and mobilization fund, a couple of times I might add, they asked me to sign on their designs. They wanted my signature before they would release the payments. We did not get a single centavo from them despite our work,” Palafox said.
Palafox’s campaign to save hundreds of trees in the hotel-casino project site has stirred controversy, forcing the SBMA to issue repeated assurances that not one tree would be cut or removed from the site.
Park said Yamasaki, architect of Grand Utopia, tapped Palafox’s firm, Palafox Associates, for the Subic project because the Filipino architect committed “to take charge of the environmental compliance certificate (ECC) and the environmental impact study (EIS).”
Park said Palafox signed the subcontract with Yamasaki on Sept. 22, 2008, two months before the groundbreaking for the project was held. By Robert Gonzaga - Philippine Daily Inquirer
Labels: Grand Utopia, ocean9, palafox, sbma, Subic Bay
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