Caloocan mall row heats up

MANILA, Philippines - A sheriff of the Caloocan City regional trial court served yesterday a court order granting the local government a writ of possession on the Gotesco Grand Central Mall.

Caloocan Judge Oscar Barrientos issued the order last Monday, giving Gotesco Investments Inc. (GII) until Thursday to vacate the mall for failing to settle P722 million in real property taxes from 1983 to 2006.

The Caloocan City government yesterday proceeded in taking over the Ever Gotesco mall and temporarily suspended its operation.

Lawyers Argee Guevarra and Trixie Angeles denied that their client, GII, owes the city government back taxes amounting to P722 million.

Angeles said the sale of the 22,685-square-meter government property where the Ever Gotesco mall now stands was only finalized on Sept. 19 last year.

She said the P722 million real property tax which the city government claimed it failed to settle for 23 years was “fantastic, incredible and one for the books.”

She said that until the purchase, Ever Gotesco had just been renting the mall property from the Caloocan City government, “thus was not liable to pay taxes on most part of those 23 years.”

Mayor Enrico Echiverri had told the mall lawyers that they must course through their complaint to the court for “it was the court that decided it.”

He assured the Ever Gotesco tenants that they can still continue doing business, and the only change they will see is the mall’s ownership.

Angeles said that if ever Ever Gotesco owes the city government taxes, “it’s for the months of September 2008, the time of the purchase of the mall property, onwards,” she said.

Angeles said the writ of possession issued by the Caloocan court was in “direct defiance” of an already existing order of a Manila court for Caloocan City officials to desist from taking over the mall.

She said they will never cede the property, adding that they had already filed an appeal with the Court of Appeals and are planning to sue Barrientos for issuing the writ of possession. – Jerry Botial, Pete Laude