Golf club members join legal battle in Camp John Hay

BAGUIO CITY, Philippines — Ten shareholders of the golf club operating inside Camp John Hay have asked a local court to stop the government from evicting them when it undertakes a takeover of the commercial sections in this former American rest and recreation base.

The petition for injunction and civil damages was filed as a class suit by members of the Camp John Hay Golf Club (CJH Golf Club) on Dec. 12, said lawyer Federico Mandapat Jr., a club official, during a Thursday briefing.

Back in 2015, the clubhouse was issued a notice to vacate by a Baguio regional trial court when it enforced an arbitral decision that should have resolved a contractual dispute being waged publicly by the Camp John Hay Development Corp. (CJHDevco) and the Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA). CJHDevco, owned by businessman Robert John Sobrepeña, won the 1996 lease to turn 247 hectares of Camp John Hay lands into a tourism estate but it was soon embroiled in a dispute with the BCDA when its contract underwent revisions.

The arbitral decision voided the contract and ordered CJHDevco to hand over its Camp John Hay properties to the government in exchange for the return of the developer’s P1.42 billion expenses.

This was not implemented because of a Court of Appeals injunction to address the rights of CJHDevco’s clients and so-called third parties who were not included in the arbitration proceedings. But the arbitral decision was reinstated this year by the Supreme Court, including the notices to vacate issued by the local court.

The golf club shareholders pursued the civil case to head off any evictions, although the Baguio court that is implementing the Supreme Court directive has not yet issued a new notice to vacate, said lawyer James Gerard Baello, whose firm, Zamora and Poblador Law Offices, is representing the golf club and its 1,039 shareholders.

Valid until 2047

Each shareholder owns membership certificates registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), which are valid until 2047 and cannot be unilaterally canceled without SEC approval, said CJH Golf Club general manager Judson Eustaquio in a statement he read at the news briefing.

As such, the arbiter’s ruling that directs CJHDevco to relinquish the leased property “as far as practicable ... cannot be enforced on the Golf Club,” which has been in charge of the course, one of the two venues of the annual Fil-American Invitational Golf Tournament, spanning 48 ha.

Because the CJH Golf Club was not part of the arbitration proceedings, the arbiter “cannot bind the Golf Club nor compel it to vacate the property,” Eustaquio said. The club has 188 workers and 156 accredited caddies who rely on its continuing operation, he added.

Mandapat, who chairs the membership committee of the club’s board of governors, said the complainants also appealed for a 72-hour temporary restraining order that was denied on Monday by Baguio’s deputy executive judge, who ruled that the club was not yet facing “imminent danger.”

Pretrial

But the shareholders’ main complaint will undergo a pretrial stage after it was raffled off to the Baguio Regional Trial Court Branch 78, he said.

READ: Fate of Camp John Hay workers up in talks

The club’s board of governors, which is chaired by Sobrepeña, and the BCDA board of directors have been negotiating a “smooth process of transition” once the government assumes control of the leased property to ensure that operations would be “business as usual.”

The BCDA and businesses inside Camp John Hay do not want operations to be disrupted because these are where the government will derive revenues, Eustaquio pointed out.

He said the CJH Golf Club “holds a direct and separate contractual agreement with BCDA independent of the lease agreement between CJHDevco and BCDA,” which was a bone of contention among legal experts here.

Lawyer Carlos Viktor Poblador, also one of the lawyers representing the CJH Golf Club, explained that “BCDA’s original John Hay master development plan mandated the creation of a golf course, and certain rights under the agreement were transferred to the Golf Club.”

“Inspired by the recent developments between BCDA and Le Monet (the hotel, which signed a new lease contract), the Golf Club looks forward to exploring avenues that uphold its legacy as the premiere golf destination in the North,” Eustaquio said.

(2024/12/20-05:04)