Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Court orders garnishment of hotel assets
THE Regional Trial Court (RTC) has ordered the seizure of all assets owned by Garwood Hotel.
Judge Ramon Daomilas Jr., presiding over RTC Branch 11, wants no trouble and has directed the hotel’s representatives to help in “pointing out the whereabouts of its assets and properties.”
The seizure is pursuant to the insolvency petition the hotel filed and the implementation and execution of an Oct. 14, 2005 order that the court issued.
Garwood, which is across the Fuente Osmeña park in Cebu City, closed in March 2005 and, in its place, opened the Rajah Park Hotel.
An insolvency petition was filed before the court and an order was issued directing the Sheriff of the RTC-Office of the Clerk of Court to “take possession of all properties, assets and belongings of the petitioner.
However, the court noted, the hotel did not provide support and assistance in the execution and none of the hotel’s assets
were ever secured.
Daomilas, in his order released last Sept. 20, directed Branch 11 court sheriff Wellington Lachica to take up where the
Office of the Clerk of Court left off and wants a progress report in five days.
Garwood’s closure grabbed the headlines in 2005 as more than 100 of its employees became jobless overnight.
The employees said management failed to explain the reasons for the sudden closure and lamented that they deserved better being actual shareholders of the venture.
Most of the hotel’s employees were workers of Park Place Hotel, a subsidiary of Pathfinder Holdings that had closed about five years ahead.
The workers invested some 50 percent of their separation pay from Park Place to invest in the Garwood Park Hotel Inc. to keep the hotel running and stay employed.
The employees-cum-investors suspected that mismanagement of funds, not bankruptcy, forced the closure of the hotel, as they said it had been having above average occupancy since it started operations in the year 2000.
Garwood Hotel had a capacity of 81 rooms but the building itself is leased from the Ecaldo Realty Corp. of the Du family. (KNR)
For Bisaya stories from Cebu. Click here. (September 25, 2007 issue)
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