Auction of Boracay beachfront property stopped

A local court has stopped what Panlilio-led Boulevard Holdings Inc. (BHI) decried as a fraudulent attempt by the “previous” owner to auction half of the beach frontage long owned by Friday’s Resort in Boracay Island.

In a disclosure to the Philippine Stock Exchange on Monday, BHI said a Quezon City Regional Trial Court judge had cancelled the auction date of the 1,477-square meter Boracay beachfront property—a transaction that was meant to satisfy personal debts allegedly owed by the former owner Mila Yap to Amable Aguiluz of Ama Colleges.

BHI chair Jose Marcel Panlilio said the “fake sale engineered by third parties” originally ordered for March 7 would not push through, and that the RTC order canceling the auction was “good news.”

In an order dated March 4, RTC presiding judge Edgardo Bellosillo noted that the property was also the subject of another pending case in Makati RTC where the injunctive order of the Court of Appeals was the subject of a pending petition before the Supreme Court.

Although there is no temporary restraining order or writ of preliminary injunction issued by the higher court for the RTC to stop the sheriff’s sale, the judge said “there is a strong probability that the outcome of the pending petition at the Supreme Court would be considered moot and academic.”

As such, the judge said the plaintiff Lonavla Properties Inc. could instead “go after the other property of the defendant Mila Yap.”

BHI was not a party to the civil case filed by Lonavla (which it identified as part of the Aguiluz group) against Mila Yap, but it filed its own petition as third party claimants to inform the court that it was the rightful owner of the subject lot for the last eight years.

Meanwhile, BHI also claimed that the “fake” auction had been “fully supported by the municipal assessor of Caticlan, Aklan and the provincial assessor of Aklan Province.” Panlilio also alleged in the disclosure that the congressman, who owns the new Lindt hotel next to Friday’s Boracay, was also behind much of its troubles.

He claimed that it was under the influence of this congressman that the provincial assessor had ordered the Municipal Assessor to “surreptitiously” cancel BHI’s title cum tax declaration issued in 2015.

Panlilio said BHI had fully paid the certificate authorizing registration, documentary stamp taxes and P11 million in cash to the Bureau of Internal Revenue to cover transfer taxes, Panlilio said.

Panlilio said this “unilateral and wrongful act” which was done sometime in 2015 had been elevated to the Supreme Court, as cited by the RTC ruling.

The disclosure said it was recently reported to the board that the intrinsic worth of Friday’s property values ranged between P1.5 billion and P1.9 billion.

As such, BHI said it was worth the P195 million price paid for legal expenses arising from the property dispute.