The online news portal of TV5
As if the cases from Vice President Jejomar Binay and Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales against their corporate empire were not enough, construction magnate Reghis Romero II and son Michael "Mikee" Romero of the Harbour Centre Group have embarked on the most serious litigation that the two have ever fought -- against each other.
The father-son feud deteriorated into a pre-Christmas firefight, when a group of 70 armed men in five motorized bancas were repulsed in their attempt to seize control of the Harbour Center Port Terminal during a December 19 dawn raid.
The botched raid, according to a spokesman for the elder Romero, was conducted hours ahead of the release of a writ of preliminary injunction from controversial Pasig Judge Rolando Mislang ousting the senior Romero from managing the money-making port operations.
The father, according to the Mislang order, had illegally seized control of the terminal operations two months earlier from One Source Port Support Services Inc., a company said to be controlled by the allies of the younger Romero.
The younger Romero, 41, could not be reached for comment, but someone close to him maintained that Mikee was "simply reclaiming what he had built and actually owns," referring to the Harbour Centre, as opposed to the construction company and developer R-II Builders that the elder Romero, 63, controls.
The problems with the Binay and Ombudsman offices, on the other hand, are all related to the R-II Builders' Smokey Mountain project and not to Harbour Centre, according to the pro-Mikee grapevine.
Mikee himself, in an earlier talk with Forbes.com, attributed the feud to his father's "envy" that his son had outgrown and outshone him while his construction company had stalled.
The latest setback for the elder Romero meant that the management of the ten-hectare Harbour Centre Port Terminal facility shall be restored to One Source, after the latter shall have posted P100 million bond to answer for possible damages.
"The evidence presented by defendants (Reghis Romero II, Harbour Centre Port Terminal, R-II Builders, R-II Holdings and Harbor Center Port Holdings) failed to convince this court that they now own and control the majority shares of defendant Harbour Centre Port Terminal in as much as the matter is still subject of an intra-corporate dispute pending before the Manila (Regional Trial) Court," Mislang said.
"In fact, no evidence was adduced to convince this court that the deeds of assignment both dated March 2, 2011 executed by defendant R-II Builders, represented by defendant Reghis Romero II and R-II Holdings in favor of defendant Harbour Centre Port Holdings (controlled by the Romero son) have been validly revoked, rescinded and annulled," the judge added.
In the wake of the Pasig court order, the elder Romero's group meanwhile distributed to the press copies of the general information sheet of One Source, showing that it has a paid-up capital of only P812,500.
Moreover, One Source listed only a total of of 10 employees holding office at an unspecified unit at the sprawling Home Depot Complex in Ortigas, Pasig, with no company telephone or fax numbers and office email address listed.
More seriously, the elder Romero's camp has accused the lawyers of young Romero of having foisted a fake corporate secretary within Harbour Centre Port Terminal to claim that there had been an earlier directors' meeting that supposedly voted to withdraw the cases the company had filed against Mikee and his fellow officers.
The impostor corporate secretary turned out to be an unemployed ex-waiter who had been inveigled to sign the spurious certificate by "female lawyers of the Paredes Law Office" in exchange for P25,000, according to Jerome Canlas, Harbour Centre Port Terminal corporate secretary, quoting the impostor's confession.
The Romero son is being represented in the mushrooming litigation by Paredes Garcia & Golez Law Office; the elder Romero by Gabionza De Santos & Partners and lawyer Marlon Cruz.
The feud and cross-claims of ownership have already washed over at the younger Romero's GlobalPort 900, whose trading has been suspended since September.
The bigger, 59-hectare North Harbor redevelopment project that Mikee Romero had taken in with San Miguel Corp. as partner is apparently safe from the feud, at least for now.
Heard through the grapevine
The Benedectine Sisters running the all-women's St. Scholastica's College in Manila are seriously considering collapsing their hard-up college and graduate school units starting the school year 2016-2017.
That is incidentally the same school year when the K-12 program and its attendant drought in college freshmen enrollment shall kick in.
If the contemplated college and graduate school closure happens, St. Scho will be following the trail already blazed decades ago by the St. Theresa's College.
E-mail: cocktales_tv5@yahoo.com
The father-son feud deteriorated into a pre-Christmas firefight, when a group of 70 armed men in five motorized bancas were repulsed in their attempt to seize control of the Harbour Center Port Terminal during a December 19 dawn raid.
The botched raid, according to a spokesman for the elder Romero, was conducted hours ahead of the release of a writ of preliminary injunction from controversial Pasig Judge Rolando Mislang ousting the senior Romero from managing the money-making port operations.
The father, according to the Mislang order, had illegally seized control of the terminal operations two months earlier from One Source Port Support Services Inc., a company said to be controlled by the allies of the younger Romero.
The younger Romero, 41, could not be reached for comment, but someone close to him maintained that Mikee was "simply reclaiming what he had built and actually owns," referring to the Harbour Centre, as opposed to the construction company and developer R-II Builders that the elder Romero, 63, controls.
The problems with the Binay and Ombudsman offices, on the other hand, are all related to the R-II Builders' Smokey Mountain project and not to Harbour Centre, according to the pro-Mikee grapevine.
Mikee himself, in an earlier talk with Forbes.com, attributed the feud to his father's "envy" that his son had outgrown and outshone him while his construction company had stalled.
The latest setback for the elder Romero meant that the management of the ten-hectare Harbour Centre Port Terminal facility shall be restored to One Source, after the latter shall have posted P100 million bond to answer for possible damages.
"The evidence presented by defendants (Reghis Romero II, Harbour Centre Port Terminal, R-II Builders, R-II Holdings and Harbor Center Port Holdings) failed to convince this court that they now own and control the majority shares of defendant Harbour Centre Port Terminal in as much as the matter is still subject of an intra-corporate dispute pending before the Manila (Regional Trial) Court," Mislang said.
"In fact, no evidence was adduced to convince this court that the deeds of assignment both dated March 2, 2011 executed by defendant R-II Builders, represented by defendant Reghis Romero II and R-II Holdings in favor of defendant Harbour Centre Port Holdings (controlled by the Romero son) have been validly revoked, rescinded and annulled," the judge added.
In the wake of the Pasig court order, the elder Romero's group meanwhile distributed to the press copies of the general information sheet of One Source, showing that it has a paid-up capital of only P812,500.
Moreover, One Source listed only a total of of 10 employees holding office at an unspecified unit at the sprawling Home Depot Complex in Ortigas, Pasig, with no company telephone or fax numbers and office email address listed.
More seriously, the elder Romero's camp has accused the lawyers of young Romero of having foisted a fake corporate secretary within Harbour Centre Port Terminal to claim that there had been an earlier directors' meeting that supposedly voted to withdraw the cases the company had filed against Mikee and his fellow officers.
The impostor corporate secretary turned out to be an unemployed ex-waiter who had been inveigled to sign the spurious certificate by "female lawyers of the Paredes Law Office" in exchange for P25,000, according to Jerome Canlas, Harbour Centre Port Terminal corporate secretary, quoting the impostor's confession.
The Romero son is being represented in the mushrooming litigation by Paredes Garcia & Golez Law Office; the elder Romero by Gabionza De Santos & Partners and lawyer Marlon Cruz.
The feud and cross-claims of ownership have already washed over at the younger Romero's GlobalPort 900, whose trading has been suspended since September.
The bigger, 59-hectare North Harbor redevelopment project that Mikee Romero had taken in with San Miguel Corp. as partner is apparently safe from the feud, at least for now.
Heard through the grapevine
The Benedectine Sisters running the all-women's St. Scholastica's College in Manila are seriously considering collapsing their hard-up college and graduate school units starting the school year 2016-2017.
That is incidentally the same school year when the K-12 program and its attendant drought in college freshmen enrollment shall kick in.
If the contemplated college and graduate school closure happens, St. Scho will be following the trail already blazed decades ago by the St. Theresa's College.
E-mail: cocktales_tv5@yahoo.com
No comments:
Post a Comment