RJ's 10-year battle

It took 10 tedious years of a drawn-out legal battle before businessman and Philippine music industry icon Ramon “RJ” Jacinto could get back his 8,000-square meter prime property along Buendia in Makati. RJ acquired the property in 1996 through a $140-million bid submitted to PNB which then owned the property, giving a down payment of $28 million and paying a one-year interest of $12 million.

But like most companies, RJ’s business was severely hit by the Asian financial crisis in 1997 and 1998, forcing him to suspend his project and go into a restructuring plan. The PNB however decided to foreclose the property, prompting RJ to go to court for an injunction. In 2007, the Supreme Court finally issued a ruling upholding a Court of Appeals decision that everything should be returned to “status quo ante” or the situation prevailing before the foreclosure, wherein RJ Ventures Realty had the title and possession of the property.

Despite the SC ruling however, RJ laments the delay by Makati Regional Trial Court Judge Joselito Villarosa in issuing a writ of execution to implement the SC order. During that time, RJ had already filed a motion to consolidate the case with a related case under the sala of Judge Rommel Baybay concerning the annulment of the foreclosure and mortgage of the said property.

According to Ramon, he was shocked when, upon inspection of the sequential court records or “rollo” transferred to Judge Baybay, they found that a decision dated Jan.10, 2008 was allegedly issued by Judge Villarosa favoring PNB, which said the Buendia property should be excluded from the SC decision. What his lawyers found even more anomalous were the “snowpaked” page numbers of the sixth rollo – giving rise to suspicions that the records may have been allegedly tampered with and that the decision favoring PNB (represented by former Solicitor General Estelito Mendoza) could have been inserted at a later date to make it part of permanent court records.

What was also puzzling was the claim that the order was allegedly mailed by the Makati RTC through the P.O. Box mailing system – more popularly known as “snail mail” for very obvious reasons – on Jan. 22, 2008 and delivered to RJ’s lawyers who are based in Manila on the same day the order was mailed. It takes more than two days, RJ insists, for the post office to deliver P.O. Box mail to the same city - so how could the order be received on the same day in two different cities? Fortunately for the “Guitarman,” Judge Baybay finally issued the writ of execution to implement the SC order, giving RJ full possession of the Buendia property after a decade-long dispute.

Baby boomers will certainly remember RJ and the Riots, the band put up by RJ in the early ‘60s when he was studying at the Ateneo. The group certainly rocked (no pun intended) the music scene at the time. The 17-year-old RJ eventually started his own radio station at the backyard of his parents’ home, churning out the latest songs that became instant hits to the teenage crowd.

Aside from his guitar, one other thing also most identified with RJ when he was studying at the Ateneo was his Ford Thunderbird, a high school graduation gift from his parents. RJ’s father, Don Fernando, was considered the father of the steel industry in the Philippines, putting up Jacinto Steel and the Iligan Integrated Steel Mills Inc. (IISMI) where RJ worked for after graduating in college, working his way up to become senior vice president. He eventually ventured out on his own and has already put up another radio station when Martial Law was declared. The Jacinto empire soon collapsed, with the family going into exile in the United States.

RJ is obviously a survivor, having managed to bounce back despite the misfortunes that befell him and his family. Not the type to harbor grudges, RJ says he is even open to negotiations with PNB and buy out the bank’s stake in the property. But aside from adding to his existing radio stations (he has 10 at the moment), one of the things he really wants to do is make sure others don’t go through the same harrowing experience he had fighting for his property.

There are a lot of improvements that must be done in the justice system, he says, and if something like this could happen to him, how much more so to those others who may not have the same resources to mount a tedious and lengthy legal battle? Aside from costly legal expenses, the case almost cost him his life after he suffered a stroke and had to undergo an angioplasty – an experience that he doesn’t wish even to his worst enemy.

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It seems our courts are being swamped with real estate disputes. Just recently, we received information that realtor Justo Ortiz (of JM Ortiz and Company) had filed a case against Professional Services Inc., for payment of P30 million representing the 3 percent commission of Ortiz for the sale of a 10,509 square-meter lot in Ortigas valued at P1.05 billion. According to records, Ortiz was given a non-exclusive authority to look for buyers, among them Robinson’s Land Corp. which the realtor submitted to Professional Services as a prospective buyer in 2006.

Being an experienced realtor, Ortiz had, since 2001, been judiciously renewing his authority with the lot owner before its expiration. Ortiz alleges that when he tried to renew his authority before its March 2007 expiration, he was given the runaround – eventually discovering that Professional Services had directly dealt with the buyer and concluded the sale of the Ortigas property without his knowledge. Ortiz is naturally demanding for his broker’s fee, saying Robinson’s Land was his registered buyer, and that the decision to purchase the property was made by the buyer’s board On March 9, 2007 when Ortiz’s authority to locate buyers was still valid.

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