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The Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority officials on
Friday assured Taiwanese investors of continued stability and
security in the investment climate at the SBMA after it terminated
the contract of a Taiwanese company to operate the golf course in
the Subic Bay Freeport.
The SBMA board has resolved to
nullify the lease and development agreement with the operators of
the 105-hectare Subic Bay Golf and Country Club—the Taiwanese
group, Universal International Group Development Co. (UIGDC), and
its holding company, Subic Bay Golf and Country Club, Inc. (SBGCCI)—for
failing to pay monetary obligations and maintain the facility.
The decision led some Taiwanese
companies to worry about their investments at the Freeport.
To clarify their position to
Malacañang, SBMA Chairman Feliciano G. Salonga and Administrator
Armand C. Arreza wrote to President Arroyo, saying the takeover of
the golf course is “merely a contractual dispute between the SBMA
and its Taiwanese operators.”
The letter stated, “The bottom
line in the SBMA’s actions against the Taiwanese entities is the
protection of the government’s fair share of revenues and
development commitments, and the SBMA was only protecting the
interest of the government in view of the continued failure of the
SBGCCI to settle its unpaid and uncontested obligations which, as of
March this year, had accumulated to P37 million.”
The SBMA officials said the
Taiwanese group has been failing since 1996 to honor its commitments
under the Lease and Development Agreement (LDA) such as the full
development of the golf course and violating labor, health,
sanitation and environmental laws.
Before the takeover, the SBMA
received a writ of preliminary injunction from the Regional Trial
Court of Olongapo City, enjoining the SBMA not to make good its
alleged “threat” of issuing a “cease and desist order.”
The SBMA officials explained
their move to terminate the lease agreement and recover the property
was within their rights as lesser of the property.
“Contrary to exaggerated
reports in media, at no instance was there any form of harassment,
physical or otherwise, and no one was bodily removed from the
premises of the golf course but merely escorted out,” the SBMA
officials said.
 --Katrina
Mennen A. Valdez
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