De la Paz appeals expulsion from golf club

Insisting that it was the son of Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman who started the brawl at the Valley Golf and Country Club (VGCC) last Dec. 26, the camp of businessman Delfin de la Paz has asked the club’s officials to reconsider their decision expelling him from the golf club.

In an eight-page letter to VGCC president Bonifacio Sumbilla, lawyer Raymund Fortun, De la Paz’s legal counsel, asked that while the Valley Golf officials are deliberating on their appeal, his client’s son, Bino, be allowed to use the club’s facilities so as not to hamper his golfing career.

“Being at the wrong end of the vicious attack and having only defended himself, the penalty of expulsion is too harsh. At most Delfin de la Paz should only be suspended, and his children should continue to be allowed the privileges of playing in the club,” said Fortun in his letter dated Jan. 23.

Based on an in-house investigation, Sumbilla and the VGCC’s board of directors expelled De la Paz for allegedly instigating the brawl by “thrusting his umbrella” at the direction of Pangandaman’s son, Nasser Jr., mayor of Masiu, Lanao del Sur.

The VGCC board also suspended the elder Pangandaman for two years, while De la Paz’s children Bino and Marie Dhel or Bambee and the younger Pangandaman and his brother, Muhammed Hussein, were banned for life from playing in the golf course.

The De la Pazes and the Pangandamans have filed charges against each other.  – Non Alquitran