STI, Benitez family resume hostilities

MANILA, Philippines - After a brief period of silence, the exchange of barbs between Tanco-led STI Holdings Inc. and the Benitez family resumed yesterday.

In a statement, the Benitez family, owners of the Philippine Women’s University (PWU), assailed STI’s latest move to foreclose PWU’s Manila campuses, saying the petition for extrajudicial foreclosure filed before a Manila court had no basis.

“STI’s latest move is a legal matter and will be dealt with in the proper legal forum,” PWU media director Lydia Benitez-Brown said.

Brown said the family had already filed a case before the Manila Regional Trial Court last month challenging STI’s declaration of default.

STI on Tuesday asked a Manila court to start the foreclosure of the PWU Taft Avenue and Indiana St. campuses for failing to pay the company almost P1 billion in accumulated loans, interest and expenses.

Aside from the Manila campuses, STI said foreclosure proceedings for the Quezon City and Davao properties of PWU would also follow.

“The filing will protect the interest of STI and its shareholders. We were supposed to be have been paid in shares of stock way back in 2011 but even now, more than three years later, the first required step of increasing the authorized capital stock of Unlad Resources, PWU’s sister company that would absorb the school’s assets, was never taken by the Benitez group,” STI president Monico Jacob said.

Instead, Jacob claimed STI’s three nominees to the Unlad board were ousted by the Benitez group in a shareholders meeting last month, which he said was “a very clear sign they are rejecting the omnibus agreement they signed and that would have made STI part owner of PWU and Unlad.”

“We waited for three years. All we got instead were baseless and false allegations in public that STI was the one pushing for the commercial development of PWU’s Quezon City property that they themselves actually approved even before STI bailed out the Benitezes from sure foreclosure in 2011,” Jacob said.

The Benitez family, on the other hand, has maintained its stance that it is willing to settle its obligations to STI, but only half the amount the Tanco camp is asking for.

“We’ve always said that we will honor all our commitments to Mr. Eusebio Tanco and STI, and we will. But only under fair and just terms. Their demand that we pay P923 million for obligations of P448 million is exorbitant and unacceptable,” Brown said.

Brown said STI Holdings had already waived all interests and penalties on the BDO loan of P250 million assumed by Tanco three years ago.

“STI acquired the BDO loan and extended a P198-million loan to Unlad Resources Development Corp. which was used to buy land in JASMS QC and for school operations” she said.