Biz Buzz: Trouble at Capitol

Members of the Capitol Hills Golf and Country Club in Quezon City—some years ago one of the best golfing destinations in Metro Manila—woke up not too long ago and found themselves facing shuttered gates as they tried to head to their club for a round or two of their favorite game.

That’s because a Quezon City regional trial court has ordered the club to “cease and desist from maintaining and operating the golf course” upon the petition of its shareholders, namely Jose Martin Aliling and Rainier Madrid.

In a notice posted at the club’s premises, the management said it had no choice but to comply with the court’s closure order, but also promised to “exhaust all legal remedies to preserve and enhance the value of the golf course.”

The trouble besetting this club can, of course, be traced to the expiration of its corporate life in 2010, which was shortly before property developer Ayala Land Inc. bought shares in the club and became part of its management.

In fact, so influential was Ayala Land that, at that time, it held seven seats of the 11-member board of the club, with the rest coming from its previous management team. Even then, trouble was already brewing because some members were apprehensive that Ayala was slowly eating into the land of the golf course and shifting portions into part of the adjacent Ayala Heights exclusive gated community.

Whichever side is correct, it seems like a sad end for Capitol, which, at one point, had a 27-hole course, with nine of these being well-lit for nighttime play. What remains now is a much shorter par 62 “executive course,” with sections of the original having been converted into residential areas.

In any case, the law mandates that a corporation like Capitol has to liquidate its assets at the end of its corporate life. Management wanted to do so in a measured and orderly fashion so as to maximize the value of its holdings, but the Quezon City court rejected this argument and ordered its closure posthaste.

It remains to be seen whether Ayala can win over some of Capitol’s more hardline shareholders and convince them to keep the formerly illustrious club in operation (as some of these owners are no longer interested in the club and just want to be paid substantial sums for their shares and walk away with the money, we’re told).

Apart from nostalgic club members who remember its illustrious past, what’s sadder is the fate of more than 300 caddies and employees who have the golf course as their source of living.

Will a miracle resolution present itself somehow, or is this the end of the once famous Capitol Hills Golf and Country Club? And if so, who will end up profiting from this prime piece of real estate in a booming part of Quezon City? Abangan. —DAXIM L. LUCAS

In defense of…

Friends of UP College of Law dean Danilo Concepcion rushed to his defense saying that the man who is now also the president of the University of the Philippines system is indeed a bar “topnotcher” despite his absence from the top 10 of the 1983 bar examinations.

How so?

“Well, it’s simple,” explained one of his friends. “Back in the 1980s, the Supreme Court made a concession to provincial law schools to publish the list of top 20 examinees, so that Metro Manila-based schools don’t dominate the rankings.”

“So back then, ‘topnotcher’ meant ‘top 20,’ not ‘top 10’ as it does today,” he said. OK.

To prove his point, he—and several more supporters of the man nicknamed “DannyCon”—sent us a picture of yellowed newspaper clippings from what looked like a scrapbook (whose clippings those were, it was unclear, but his name was highlighted with an orange marker) with the name of the future UP law dean indeed listed in the top 20 (87.05 percent, if you must know. Certainly, nothing to scoff at.)

Incidentally, there’s still no word as to who will replace Concepcion as dean of the UP College of Law, given the often contentious race for the post and what one insider described as a “factionalized” faculty.

So for now, Concepcion will hold two highly politicized posts concurrently—that of UP president AND dean of the college of law. Talk about lightning rod posts. —DAXIM L. LUCAS

Chinese wall

There is a wall between the commissioners of the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) and its competition enforcement office (CEO), says PCC Chair Arsenio Balisacan. The commissioners don’t know what happens at the other side of that wall. The finer details of any investigation, how it evolves—all of that is kept close to CEO’s chest up to the very last moment.

But it’s the good kind of wall, the former Neda director-general would clarify. It’s the kind that observes enough distance to keep things impartial once the commissioners have to make a verdict. We all know the dangers of being too close, and PCC knows that too.

That’s how it works for PCC, which was just established last year. The CEO builds the case, the commissioners then decide on it. But there are times when a small window appears in the otherwise concrete wall, and this is where the commissioners and the CEO get to talk.

“So the team always reports to us on how the case is progressing, whether there is a good prospect of reaching a conclusion. We would have to make that kind of judgment although they won’t tell the merits of the case,” he said.

Such is the practice for three full administrative investigations that the watchdog is currently doing on cement, power, and— recently we’ve learned — healthcare.

Each of these cases is a running bet on the chances of finding something conclusive about an industry, which has for so long operated without the watchful eye of an agency like PCC.

“Because we spend resources in the case, we would not want to spend our resources in a case that, say, may not have a future or may have a poor probability of success in the courts,” he said.

With the investigations still in progress, one can only guess what cards the CEO is hiding. But until the cards are on the table, all the commissioners have to do is wait at the other side of the wall. —ROY STEPHEN C. CANIVEL