Uniwide: Court order premature

I write as new president of Uniwide Holdings Corp.

This refers to the report, “Court orders liquidation of Uniwide” (11/29/17), by Doris Dumlao-Abadilla.

The report cited an order dated Nov. 23, 2017, issued by the RTC-Parañaque Branch 258.

I am totally surprised with this report because Uniwide’s counsel received a copy of said order only last Dec. 5, 2017, which was sent by the court via registered mail. It is apparent that your reporter received said order much earlier than Uniwide’s counsel, such as Nov. 28, 2017, or earlier.

May I therefore know how Dumlao-Abadilla was able to get hold of the order? I understand that she is not assigned to cover stories happening in Parañaque nor assigned with the Justice and Court Reporters’ Association. Who then gave her a copy? We are also surprised why she did not try to get Uniwide’s side in the interest of balanced reporting.

At any rate, we wish to inform the public that management will immediately seek a reconsideration of this order as Uniwide was not given an opportunity to oppose the liquidation petition filed by Manila Bay Development Corp.

According to our lawyers, they also intend to point to the RTC-Parañaque that there is still a case pending with the Supreme Court that is related to the issue of whether the Court of Appeals was correct in dismissing Uniwide’s appeal from an earlier decision of the Securities and Exchange Commission denying Uniwide’s petition for rehabilitation.

Our lawyers also opine that it would have been best that the RTC-Parañaque held in abeyance the issuance of said order to give judicial courtesy to the Supreme Court. On this ground alone, I was told that the order was clearly premature.

For the information of your readers, Uniwide had already fully settled all of its loan obligations with all its creditor banks except for one.

Moreover, when Uniwide caused the publication of an ad in a major daily requesting all creditors to resubmit their claims to Uniwide management for revalidation, only creditors with claims totaling P200 million came forward, which can easily be covered by the group’s existing assets.

DR. JESUS LIM ARRANZA, president, Uniwide Holdings Inc., and chair, Federation of Philippine Industries Inc.