Uniwide exec wants P5-B stock certificates back

MANILA, Philippines - An official of Uniwide Holdings Inc. (UHI) asked the Parañaque regional trial court (RTC) to order the city’s municipal trial court (MTC) and a private developer to release P5 billion worth of stock certificates and other items seized during last year’s allegedly illegal closure of Uniwide  Coastal Mall.

In a motion filed last month, UHI president Salvador Hababag said the seizure violated standard procedures on the court-ordered seizure of assets and was a blatant disregard of a preliminary injunction or stay order issued by a superior court.

Hababag asked the Parañaque RTC Branch 195 to order the inventory of all stocks and items that are still inside the shuttered Uniwide Coastal Mall on Roxas Boulevard and to return to the rightful owners the items taken out of the mall when it was padlocked by sheriff Hildo Epres on Oct. 29, 2014, based on what he claimed as a highly irregular order of MTC Branch 78 presiding Judge Ramsey Domingo Pichay.

The seizure arose from a legal dispute between UHI with its lessor, Manila Bay Development Corp.