Davao court stops BF sale of Apo View Hotel

DAVAO CITY — A Regional Trial Court (RTC) judge here has stopped Banco Filipino (BF) from selling Apo View Hotel in a public auction after the hotel reportedly failed to pay its obligations which, as of last month, amoun—ted to P335 million.

Banco Filipino has announced the hotel’s foreclosure and its plan to put it on the auction block on Sept. 27.

In a six-page decision, RTC Branch 33 Judge Wenceslao Ibabao, however, said the foreclosure proceedings were "untimely."

The hotel stands on a 9,673-square-meter lot which the Pamintuan Enterprises mortgaged to Banco Filipino.

The hotel has over 200 employees.

Ibabao blocked the hotel’s sale after Marilou Aldevera, clerk of court and ex-officio provincial sheriff, referred to him the letters of the hotel’s lawyers calling for the cancellation and withdrawal of the notice of extrajudicial foreclosure and sale.

Apo View’s lawyers argued that the planned foreclosure violates an existing writ of preliminary injunction which RTC Branch 8 issued on June 29, 1999.

Ibabao supported this view, saying the injunction "did not appear to have already been dissolved."

The writ was issued based on a civil case pending with RTC Branch 15 which Ibabao said should first be resolved. In the case, the hotel questioned the validity of promissory notes which Banco Filipino claimed it had to honor.