MANILA, Philippines—The cases filed Monday in the Antipolo prosecutor’s office belie the perception that golf is a sedate game of pedigreed folks and gentle people, at least in the Philippine setting.

It is obviously not for the fainthearted and is ostensibly more violent than any contact sport.

The adversaries on that fateful day after Christmas at the Valley Golf and Country Club in the rolling hills of Antipolo City used golf balls as flying missiles, fists, baseball bats, guns, a knife and an umbrella, according to the complainants.

On one side were businessman Delfin Dela Paz, 56, and his son, Bino, 14; on the other were the sons of Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman—Hussein, 30, and Nasser Junior, 27, who is mayor of Masiu town in Lanao del Sur province.

The case brought by Dela Paz against the Pangandamans was earlier chronicled in a widely circulated e-mail his daughter Bambee, 18, a golf scholar in the United States, had written in her blog.

Bambee’s narration heaped blame on the Pangandamans, who she said overtook the Dela Paz flight on Hole No. 3 without asking permission required under “Etiquette 101.”

The elder Dela Paz confronted the Pangandamans who then mauled him and his son with the Masiu mayor barking at his caddy: “Hindi nila kami kilala! Sabihin mo sa kanila kung sino ako! (They don’t know who I am! Tell them who I am!)”

A second round erupted at the clubhouse where the Pangandamans, accompanied by bodyguards, allegedly again battered the Dela Pazes black, blue and bloodied as they lodged a complaint.

Dela Paz’s wife and son came charging, carrying baseball bats as the Pangandaman’s two bodyguards pulled out guns.

Proverbial cooler heads intervened.

That was the account carried in Bambee’s blog circulated with the heading “atrocious golfing incident—let everyone know people like these still roam the halls of power.”

It was essentially the narration contained in the complaint filed by the Dela Pazes of slight physical injuries and child abuse against the prominent clan from Lanao del Sur.

Pangandamans

Come now the Pangandamans.

In their complaint lodged on the first working day after the holidays and one hour before the Dela Pazes came to the same prosecutor’s office, by a quirk of fate, the Pangandamans accused their adversaries with child abuse on top of physical injuries, grave and light threats.

“They keep harping on the boy (Bino) being 14 years old. Well, here we have someone who is only eight,” said Teodoro Pastrana, lawyer of the Pangandamans.

In the 14-page joint affidavit, Hussein said he was filing “criminal charges for violation of the child abuse law against all the aforementioned respondents who conspired to commit grave coercion and light threats against my 8-year-old son.”

The Pangandaman brothers also gave their own version of the incident for the first time.

They recounted that after their initial argument about the Pangandamans “overtaking” them, the Dela Paz flight allegedly kept hitting shots into the green without shouting “fore,” barely missing Hussein, who just shrugged them off.

“My caddy, as precautionary measure, took Angelo behind one of the golf cart to shield him from the Dela Paz shots,” Nasser Junior said in the complaint.

Based on the brothers’ account, the incident occurred when the Dela Pazes thought that Nasser Junior and another member of his flight, who arrived late, had overtaken them.

A matter of courtesy

Nasser Junior said he explained to Dela Paz that his group had already pre-registered and was not overtaking them, an explanation which, he thought, had satisfied Dela Paz, who told him “kortesiya lang (just have courtesy).”

But he said Dela Paz apparently “deeply resented” the overtaking because his flight started hitting shots into the green without shouting “fore” and while the Pangandaman group was still on the fairway.

Later, Nasser Junior said Dela Paz confronted them again, shouting expletives: “Sino ka ba? Member ka ba dito? Hindi mo ba ako kilala? (Who are you? Are you a member here? Don’t you know who I am?)”

“Mr. Dela Paz, oblivious of my explanations and with single-minded intent, closed the golf umbrella he was carrying and suddenly thrust it at me. I instinctively parried his thrust with my elbow; in the process I spilled my Coke. Almost instantaneously, I punched him in self-defense,” Nasser Junior said.

He said Bino and Bambee then “rushed in to help their father’s assault.”

The Pangandaman brothers said the commotion attracted the attention of the club personnel and other golfers and the fight was broken up.

In full force

“The rest of the Dela Paz family had by then arrived at the clubhouse in full force, with his older son Bruce menacingly armed with a baseball bat and a burly male companion wearing a red jersey. Even Mrs. Dela Paz rushed to the golf course, carrying a long bladed weapon,” the Pangandaman brothers said.

They added that Bruce, the companion and Dela Paz’s wife were blocked by the security guards from entering the clubhouse.

“With the real threat of physical harm waiting for us outside the clubhouse lobby, all of us in the group could not leave” through the main gate and used the parking exit, instead, they added.

They filed a physical injuries charge against Dela Paz, Bino and Bambee, grave and light threats against Dela Paz, grave coercion and light threats against the three and Bruce, Maridel, and “John Doe,” their unidentified companion.

The Pangandamans attached to their complaint the affidavits of three caddies who accompanied them on their flight—Renato Legaspi, Ferdy dela Torre and Santos Estrera.

In their joint affidavit, the caddies supported the story of the Pangandaman brothers, saying it was Dela Paz who started the fight and had been the aggressor throughout.

Pastrana told reporters that there was no reason for the agrarian reform secretary to resign, go on leave or be suspended because the Pangandamans were the aggrieved party in the brawl.

Amicable settlement?

Asked if the Pangandamans were open to an amicable settlement, Pastrana said: “I will not prevent my clients from entering into a settlement.”

Dela Paz lawyer Raymond Fortun said his clients had no reason to include Pangandaman Senior in the complaint yet but that they were set to go to the Ombudsman on Wednesday to seek the preventive suspension of the secretary “so as not to derail the investigation.”

The elder Dela Paz said: “I’m a very small man. We’re not used to this. But we have to seek justice. It has been very traumatic for Bino.”

Fortun said the agrarian reform secretary was not merely “sitting there” as an observer but was shouting invectives and his actions were not “befitting a person of his rank.”

He said that if Pangandaman Senior had acted differently “the incident would not have escalated.”

“If the investigation shows that the secretary was involved, then we would amend the complaint,” Fortun added.

He told reporters that there was “room for settlement” but there had to be a “sincere effort” from the Pangandamans.

“They have to admit their mistake and compensate for whatever damage the incident caused the family,” Fortun said.

The complaints will be subject to a preliminary investigation by the prosecutor.

Child abuse is penalized by a minimum of six years but the involvement of a public official in the incident could bring it to 9-12 years. The penalty for slight physical injuries is one to six months imprisonment.

For golf aficionados, the incident could be very traumatizing, as one blogger said in response to Bambee’s e-mail that is circulating in cyberspace: “Is this true? It is very frightening.”