ENHANCED Community Quarantine (ECQ) came down on us on Tuesday, March 17, 2020. On Saturday, March 14, either the MMDA or NCR mayors imposed a curfew. The rumors about these, broke on Thursday, March 12.
My usual weekday schedule before COVID was to make ‘hatid’ and ‘sundo’ to my only daughter, Cuchie, from our New Manila home to her Makati central business district (CBD) office and back.
Another option was for her to ride the company shuttle to any of the malls along EDSA and I would pick her up there.
If I did not have any schedule in Makati or Manila in the afternoon, my practice was to go to the Greenhills Commercial Center or to former President/Mayor Joseph ‘Erap’ Ejercito Estrada’s office in North Greenhills.
Except for the period September 2009 to September 2010, I have been with him since August 2004. However, for one year, I supported President Benigno ‘Noynoy’ Aquino y Cojuangco.
After bringing my daughter to work on weekdays and to Unimart on weekends, I would proceed to either a formal Media Forum or an informal Kapihan.
Aside from the Aristocrat on Roxas Blvd., Café Adriatico on Remedios Circle, Lido Restaurant on Mindanao Ave., Annabel’s on Morato Ave. and Nanka on Mother Ignacia, my favorite venue was Mister Donut in Greenhills.
The first COVID case may have come from Cebu, but the first locally transmitted case that turned fatal was identified as a Muslim resident of Cainta who frequented the Muslim Prayer Room and Unimart in Greenhills.
The news broke on Friday, March 5, just as I was on the way to Greenhills.
Our entire Mr. Donut gang immediately quarantined ourselves from Greenhills.
My Ahorro y Ramos (Meycauayan, Bulacan) in – laws from England, California and Arizona (as well as a family from Davao) had just been on a ‘Balikbayan’ visit starting on February 9. The last of a dozen brothers and sisters in law, nephews, nieces and grandchildren had left Metro Manila in the first week of March.
After Mayor Estrada had stepped down from the mayoralty of Manila on June 30, 2019, my contract as a media consultant also ended.
Since then, I continued to attend Media Fora and Kapihans in the mornings.
However, two family business matters started to take more of my time and energy.
In December 2011, I had sold the land of our ancestral residence on Campanilla St., corner Balete Drive, New Manila, Q. C., by way of a not perfected Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) to Manosa Properties, Inc.
My 1927 house was dismantled and transferred to Casas de Acuzar, Bagac, Bataan, in late 2015. MPI started to construct four single detached villas and eighteen condominium units in early 2015.
The promised delivery or turn over date for most of the units was December 2016.
However, in the middle of March 2017, construction stopped. The MPI CEO, Francisco ‘Dino’ Manosa y Singh, blamed it all on the General Contractor and his own officers and employees.
Meanwhile, MPI went in search of a White Knight and promised to refund the unit buyers, the majority of whom had fully or substantially paid.
MPI had just refunded forty - six million pesos to three villa buyers, out of a total five hundred six million pesos paid by the twenty Campanilla Lane unit buyers, when it completely ran out of cash.
In December of 2015, MPI had mortgaged one third of my land for a ninety million pesos credit line. On August 1, 2020, Luzon Development Bank started extra – judicial foreclosure proceedings.
The collateral, 1,072 square meters of land with the improvements, was sold at public auction on September 19, 2019.
On August 9, MPI filed for court supervised corporate rehabilitation before the Paranaque RTC. The court issued a commencement order on August 19.
However, on February 16, 2020, the court dismissed the petition. MPI filed an MR which was dismissed on June 8.
MPI filed a notice of appeal and record of appeal on August 7. The Court of Appeals wrote to MPI on December 23 to file its appeal.
Meanwhile, I am not being paid for my land nor allowed to make use of it and the unit buyers are not being refunded their remaining balance of five hundred six million pesos.
Twelve Campanilla Lane unit buyers filed a complaint before the HSAC/HLURB on July 20, 2020 against LDB, MPI and us.
The NCR Regional Adjudication issued a summons on August 7. MPI did not respond to the summons.
The first and second hearings were scheduled in January. MPI did not appear nor attend. A ‘cease and desist’ order was issued against LDB.
The second hearing was postponed to February. The latter was again postponed to March 18. LDB appealed the CDO to the Commission ‘en banc’.
(To be continued …)