SMPHI tactics

News report came out on June 26 that the SM Prime Holdings Inc., the losing bidder for the Occidental Negros Provincial Capitol lots, had asked the Register of Deeds to put a lis pendens notation in the title of this property.

This notation in effect informs the intending buyer that this land has an adverse claim and therefore the intending buyer could be buying a property that is owned or will be owned by another. This is a way for an adversary to prevent the land owner from disposing of his property. This is like sending a message, “caveat emptor” or “buyers beware”.

Since it is known that the province had already entered into a contract with Ayala Land Inc. on insistence of the Commission on Audit which until now is sitting on the application for approval for almost a year now, the message is actually being sent to ALI, the business competitor of SM and the winner in the bidding for this lot in July 2011.

The Register of Deeds naturally dismissed the company’s petition to register their adverse claim which they filed as early as March 23, 2012. Note the date.

The notice of denial was forthwith the RoD decision was on March 26.

In denying the SM petition, the RoD said that he is “not fully convinced of the opinion of the adverse claimant that the latter has a direct claim on the properties of the registered owner” and that SMPHI’s claim “is based merely on good reason of the adverse claimant.”

In simple language, the justification of SM for asking the RoD is merely its own concoction and not based on legal or even moral grounds. SM must have thought the RoD does not think enough to see their tactics, but any lucid mind can insist that anybody who has no claim on a property cannot stop the owner from disposing of the property as he sees fit.

SMPHI, however, refused to accept the denial asserting that the denial was “clearly unfounded” and “deprived SMPHI of its right to give notice to third persons of its interest in the properties.”

SMPHI even accused the RoD of being arbitrary despite the fact that the RoD cannot find any reason for the claim of SMPHI. Because of this the company elevated the matter to the Land Registration Authority.

In fact, the RoD suggested that if SMPHI does not agree with its ruling it can elevate the matter to higher authorities.

SM insists that it “has good reasons to believe that it is the winning bidder in public auction and therefore has the sole and exclusive right to purchase or lease the properties of the province.”

The problem of SMPHI is that it is not the winning bidder and no matter how it keeps on insisting, the reality is that it lost.

It is like a politician that lost the election and keeps going around declaring it won when the facts stare it in the face that it lost.

I remember last year that SMPHI called for a press conference and said that it should be given the right to the property because it was the first to make an offer. I then asked whether a man who submitted his suit first had the priority right to the maiden’s hand but the lawyer got peeved and eventually the presscon broke up.

I reiterate that question. Just because SMPHI has made an offer and even without participating in the second bidding it should get the property?

We recall that SMPHI did bid for the first time but this was declared a failure and a second one was called. SM refused to join contending that it “won” the first bidding that failed.

How in the world can SMPHI claim it won when it didn’t? Is a bidder in a failed bidding even if it proposed a higher bid considered to have won? SMPHI wants us to believe this is so, but we know it isn’t as what SMPHI says. Thousands of failed bidding tells us this much – nobody in a failed bidding has ever won.

Maybe SMPHI wants to be the first to make history?

Anyway the RoD says it cannot accept the proposal of SMPHI because it cannot show that it won the bidding except in its imagination. I have not read that RoD asked SMPHI for any document to show it won the bid and was denied its “exclusive right.”

No matter what it says, SMPHI lost the bidding and now is engaged in trying to prevent the winner from taking possession of the property by resorting to tactics intended to delay. With its resources, connections and a phalanx of top lawyers it can afford to do so.

But as usual with efforts of this nature, its slip is slipping indeed.*

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