BCDA: Sobrepeña group has no legal leg to stand on

State-run Bases Conversion and Development Authority (BCDA) declared Thursday that the decision of Camp John Hay Development Corp. (CJHDevco) to secure a temporary restraining order to stop a supposed takeover of the latter’s leased properties at the John Hay Special Economic Zone (JHSEZ) has no basis.

According to BCDA, there is no attempt in the first place to take over the leased properties, as claimed by CJHDevco of the Sobrepeña group.

“As far as the BCDA is concerned, there is no legal basis for a TRO. No takeover has taken place, and no attempt has been made, hence the court order comes as a surprise and mystery to us,” BCDA president and chief executive officer Arnel Paciano D. Casanova said in a statement. “They’re afraid of their own ghost, which they created trying to evade their huge obligation to the government.”

Also, the delinquent lessee is “grasping at straws” to evade meeting their debt obligation, which has ballooned to some P3 billion, the BCDA chief executive added.

Baguio Regional Trial Court Executive Judge Iluminada Cabato issued a three-day TRO, effective January 24, based on CJHDevco’s allegations that the BCDA plans to “swiftly grab possession of the property in a matter of hours” and that “mere arithmetic cannot be used to compute the injury that CJHDevCo will suffer.”

Casanova also questioned the “arithmetic” that was used in computing for CJHDevco’s P14.4-billion counterclaim in damages, saying the numbers presented “are baseless and atrocious.”

“The numbers that cannot be disputed is their ballooning obligation to BCDA, amounting to P3 billion, and this is the continuing damage that the government is suffering,” Casanova said.

“BCDA has always taken the normal route in asking CJHDevco to pay its obligations. It is CJHDevco which has been unreasonable with its actions. What they are doing is grossly disadvantageous to government,” he added.

Casanova stressed that had the Sobrepeña group settled its P3-billion debt, that amount would have gone to improving John Hay, and regional development, particularly in Baguio.

The financial row had developed owing to CJHDevco’s continuing refusal to pay its financial obligations as stipulated in the developer’s lease contract with the BCDA.

Without any notice to BCDA, the John Hay lessee unceremoniously kicked out four BCDA directors from the latter’s board of directors upon announcing that they rescinded the 2008 Restructuring Memorandum of Agreement earlier this month.

A week after the rescission, CJHDevco officials filed for arbitration, claiming P14.4 billion in damages.—Amy R. Remo