Makati condo row

After more than half a year of being deprived of their respective condominium properties, a number of unit owners of Infinity Tower Condominium finally were able to set foot on their units.

The Makati City regional trial court just recently allowed several owners of 83 condominium units in Infinity to enter their property. Makati RTC Branch 139 Executive Judge Benjamin Pozon issued a temporary restraining order against Quadrillion Property Development Corp. (QPDC) and its representatives, namely Joaquin Rodriguez Sr., Melesa Chua of CDC Holdings Inc.; and Joaquin Rodriguez Jr. who allegedly were behind a move to prevent the condominium unit owners entering the very building where their properties are located.

Pozon said that the property administrator “should never be provided rights higher than its owners.”

Quadrillion claims to be the property manager of Infinity Tower Condominium.

The decision, althoughmonths late, was welcomed by the condominium unit owners as a positive development that upheld their constitutional rights over their properties.

Earlier, QPDC based on a writ of preliminary injunction, ejected the occupants of the condominium units and barricaded the entrances and exits of the condo building allegedly to the disadvantage of unit owners who had their units being rented out to various clients.

The units owners said this move of Quadrillion allegedly went beyond the call of a property administrator as it encroached on the former’s rights and jeopardized the businesses of the same owners as business operations completely stopped.

To protect their reputation and relationship with their clients, the unit owners had to rent and transfer their business guests to various condominium units elsewhere in Makati City.

For more than half a year, QPDC and its representatives allegedly have used armed security guards, and barbed wires, to block condominium unit owners from entering the building premises.

This prompted the unit owners to seek a TRO, which eventually was granted by the court. Pozon initially released a 72-hour temporary restraining order last July 24, 2013. On July 26, Makati RTC Judge Ethel V. Mercado-Gutay of Branch 138, extended the TRO to 20 days.

The owners of the 83 condominium units finally given access to their condominium units by the Court are: Beccomax, Ascott Hospitality Holdings Inc., Archinet and Seokwhan Hahn, Marvin Elton T. Mendoza, Martin Earl T. Mendoza, Elizabeth T. Mendoza, Manuel S. Mendoza and Marion Emmanuel T. Mendoza.

However, reports from the Makati City Police Station stated the security agency supposedly guarding the building allegedly fired gunshots last July 27, scaring off unit owners and their staff who were inside the building at that time. Makati Police personnel and a SWAT team responded to the incident.

Not one among the 33 security guards of the agency admitted to the firing, and local police said the guards would be subjected to a paraffin test to determine the shooter.

Good year for printers

It is turning out to be a very good year for the printing devices business in the Philippines.

According to market analyst International Data Corp. (IDC), the market for printing devices in the country made an astounding turn and grew by 34.5 percent year-over-year in the first quarter of 2013.

This development renders the Philippines the most upbeat market in Asia-Pacific which, in contrast, contracted year-on-year for the sixth quarter in a row and dropped by 7.6 percent, IDC said.

According to IDC’s Quarterly Hardcopy Peripherals (HCP) Tracker, about 233,400 units of single and multifunction printers (MFP) and copiers were shipped in the first quarter of 2013, compared with only 174,000 units in the same period of 2012.

Of the quarter’s total, eight out of 10 were of inkjet technology while laser and serial dot matrix (SDM) accounted for the remaining 12.9 percent and seven percent, respectively, IDC reported, adding that total market revenue hit an all-time high of S$48.2 million during the January-March 2013 period.

IDC market analyst Pamela Sumanga explained that this trend was made possible by healthy demand motivated by the bullish outlook of the economy.

She noted that both consumer and commercial products (i.e., inkjet and laser printing devices) have demonstrated double-digit growth rates year-on-year and beat expectations due to the end-users’ receptiveness to vendors’ initiatives around PC bundling, price drops, and trade-in promotions to name a few.

Sumanga said that dealers, on the other hand, were more open to take in fresh stocks from vendors due to prospects of better sales on the retail front and corporate side as IT investments are projected to pick up, given the confidence on the economy.

IDC also pointed out that the manner at which the local printing market grew at the start of the year strengthened the earlier projections of growth after two successive years of decline.

From 2011 to 2012, the local printing market was weighed down by the changes in the product line-ups, strategies of vendors, and usage behaviour of end-users. With that adjustment period behind and the indications of renewed end-user demand, IDC said that it projects the Philippine HCP market to likely grow by 5.3 percent in 2013 to reach about 802,000 units.

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