Ownership of Dagupan gov’t -owned 5-Star hotel disputed

By Jen Mondejar

DAGUPAN CITY – The sale of a prime hotel here involving the city government is now mired in controversy as the winning bidder in the controversial sale of the city-owned MC Adore Hotel here has asked the court to give it a “level playing field” by allowing it to intervene in the declaratory relief case seeking the annulment of a resolution that authorized the outgoing mayor to initiate the sale of the once five-star hotel property.

Lawyer Ferdinand Topacio, counsel of AMB ALC Holdings and Management Inc. headed by former Philippine ambassador to Laos Antonio Cabangon Chua, said they asked the Regional Trial Court Branch 40 on June 20 to become a party to the case.

Topacio said AMB ALC was “directly affected” by the case as it is now the “registered owner” of the MC Adore property “and therefore, more than anyone else, it enjoys not only direct and unmistakable, but in fact superior rights” over it.

Topacio and lawyer Joselito Lomangaya told reporters that the sale of MC Adore Hotel was consummated after AMB ALC won the bidding for P119 million on Jan. 7 and the titles of the property were transferred to the company.

They said the company has taken over the property after it paid P8,925,000 in capital gains and documentary stamp tax to the Bureau of Internal Revenue.

They said AMB ALC also paid a local transfer tax of P892,500 to the Dagupan City treasurer’s office and P554.135 as registration fee for the property’s titles.

City legal officer Roy Laforteza, allegedly without consulting the incoming city administration of mayor-elect Belen Fernandez, earlier had filed a motion for reconsideration in behalf of respondents that included outgoing Mayor Benjamin Lim on the May 20 decision of RTC Branch 40 Judge Mervin Jovito Samadan voiding a city council resolution authorizing the mayor to negotiate the sale of the property.

Lim has been in the hospital since May 12. 

The lawyers of AMB ALC are asking the court to reverse its decision and to issue a new ruling dismissing the petition that sought its nullification.

Lawyer Borromeo Bustamante, legal counsel of petitioner Ryan Ravanzo, secretary to the city council, said he made a reply comment and submitted it Thursday.

“They have no standing in court because if ever they bought the property, they are buyers in bad faith,” Bustamante said.

“The action is declaratory relief whose purpose is to declare or not the resolution authorizing Lim to sell MC Adore and the Calasiao property as valid or not.”

The five-story MC Adore Hotel, built in the 1970s, has a total land area of 5,113.99 square meters. Its helipad at the roof deck comprises 12,673 square meters.

The city government bought the property from the government’s Asset Privatization Trust which took over the property from the Development Bank of the Philippines.

It was originally intended as the site of a new city hall.

But Fernandez has been firm in her stand that the property’s sale was allegedly disadvantageous to the city and wanted its recovery.