Lawless

Maybe we impeached the wrong Supreme Court justice. Another justice’s name consistently crops up when people are shocked at how one businessman can behave with so much impunity and yet consistently get his way with the courts.

The businessman is said to be a close friend of this magistrate. The magistrate is said to be such a powerful powerbroker in the judiciary he can make and unmake the careers of lower court judges. That leverage is the most plausible explanation for the way the businessman wins favorable rulings.

The businessman’s reputation precedes him. He has been involved in several well-publicized cases. His name is Jose Go, owner of the Gotesco Group of Companies.

In 2008, a near-shoot out happened on the premises of the Caloocan Gotesco mall when armed men resisted the attempt of the Caloocan city government to take over the property. Gotesco had not paid any real estate taxes for two decades when the city government decided to take possession of the property.

The city government was prevented from taking possession of the mall by a writ of preliminary injunction issued by Judge Cicero Jurado. The City of Caloocan likewise failed to collect the real property taxes due it.

A few years ago, the banking system was shocked by the closure of Orient Bank, chaired by Jose Go. The bank turned insolvent even after the BSP extended it an emergency loan amounting to P5 billion. Because of Orient Bank’s closure, PDIC had to cover the insured portion of its thousands of depositors who, in turn, lost the rest of their money beyond the insured amount.

Go’s 60-hectare property in Nasugbu, Batangas — the Evercrest Golf Club — was used to secure the emergency loan to Orient Bank. To this day, the Asset Management Department of the BSP is hampered by court cases and could not dispose of the Evercrest property. The members of the golf club, for their part, have seen the value of their shares shrink to nearly nil. The golf course has fallen into neglect because of the legal squabbles.

Even more interesting is the case of the Gotesco Tower, a 10-storey apartment building along Natividad Lopez Street, a stone’s throw from the Manila City Hall.

The property was used as collateral for a loan extended by UCPB. When Gotesco defaulted on the loan, UCPB foreclosed Gotesco Tower and consolidated ownership over it. That was about a decade ago.

After UCPB foreclosed Gotesco Tower, a company named Royal Overseers, Inc. (part of the Gotesco Group) entered into a 2-year contract of lease for the building at the rate of a million pesos a month. Royal never paid the bank the rent stipulated in the contract of lease. Even as the bank demanded the rent due it, Royal retained control of the building and collected for itself rent from the tenants, paying the bank nothing.

If the BSP no less has had problems dealing with Jose Go, did UCPB think it could enforce its contract?

This lease contract expired on December 31, 2003 — with Go controlling the property and not paying the contracted lease. Later, UCPB sold the property it legally owned to a third party. The new owners, having paid good money for the property, tried to make their investment yield income.

In 2006, UCPB sued Royal for back rentals and return of the property. The Metropolitan Trial Court of Makati ruled that Royal should return the property to UCPB and pay the bank back rentals due. Royal appealed the decision to the Court of Appeals. The appeals court reversed the trial court on some minute technicality. This was such a strange ruling, considering the bank had in fact already sold the property.

Just to emphasize the point: the appeals court ruled that Go remain in possession of the building whose ownership was already consolidated by the bank and five years after the lease contract (for which no lease payments were made) expired.

The new owners filed an urgent motion to intervene, having paid for the property and now denied the right to actually possess it. Their motion was to no avail.

On July 19, 2010, lawyers for Go’s Royal Overseers, accompanied by three dozen guards in full battle gear as well as a utility crew armed with crowbars, invaded Gotesco Tower. They forced open the building’s administrative offices, destroyed the CCTV cameras to prevent documentation of their deed, and proceeded to occupy the property.

The team was led by Sheriff Carmelo Cachero, specifically requested by Royal to enforce the strange ruling. Here is another interesting character. Not only is he named in a separate complaint filed by PNB for failing to observe procedures, he is also the same sheriff who prevented Caloocan from taking over the Gotesco mall.

The team, on the same day, invaded in the same manner a property in Marikina previously owned by Jose Go. Accompanying that team was Go’s lawyer, Atty. Acerey Pacheco. Recently, Pacheco was named trial court judge.

The tenants of Gotesco Tower now continue paying rent to a former owner who, in turn, does not pay the bank. Worse, the new owners of the property have no access to it, much less to the rentals collected from the tenants.

One might say the behavior of the former owner in this case appears lawless. The fact is even worse: that behavior is actually sanctioned by bizarre court orders. In the meantime, all the rest of us wonder whatever happened to the judicial reforms promised by the new dispensation. Judicial powerbrokers still seem to rule the roost and proper businessmen are appalled by that.