John Hay lessee files case vs BCDA prexy

BAGUIO CITY -- Executives of property developer Camp John Hay Development Corp here Thursday lodged a perjury complaint against the president and chief executive officer of the Bases Conversion and Development Authority.

The perjury charge against BCDA president and chief executive officer, Arnel Paciano Casanova stemmed from his alleged accusations that CJHDevCo officials used false pretenses to deceive and induced the agency to enter into a “dacion en pago” agreement on May 27, 2011, in order to settle its outstanding obligation with BCDA.

"No other conclusion can adduced from the foregoing circumstance except for the reprehensible and ominous certainty that respondent willfully and deliberately omitted facts in order to support a falsehood – the existence of the purported double sale," CJHDevCo vice president for litigation Manuel Ubarra Jr. said in a complaint-affidavit filed before the Manila City fiscal’s office.

The CJHDevCo official accused Casanova of perjuring himself when he filed an estafa complaint against officials of CJHDevCo before senior state prosecutor Philip Kimpo at the Department of Justice last March.

Casanova earlier claimed that BCDA was deceived and induced to enter into an Agreement dated 27 May 2010 with CJHDevCo wherein the latter transferred to BCDA ownership and possession of five log homes in Camp John Hay in exchange for the condonation of its outstanding obligation with BCDA in the amount of P36,801,499 due to the false pretenses of the CJHDevCo officers.

He said the government agency would never have given its consent to and entered into the Dacion en pago Agreement had it known that one of the log homes, Log Home No. 9, had been previously sold in 1999 by CJHDevCo to another person identified as Wilson Sy.

Ubarra, in response to the statement of Casanova, denied the respondent’s malicious accusation that CJHDevCo, through its officers, deceived and induced BCDA to enter into dacion en pago.

He explained that the first seller had rescinded his offer to buy the unit even before the log cabin was "assigned" to the property developer.