MANILA, Philippines—The possibility of an amicable settlement being reached between the protagonists in the Antipolo golf club brawl dimmed Tuesday after the lawyers of the opposing sides indicated each would not initiate the talks.

Both the Pangandaman and De la Paz camps said they were willing to settle out of court the respective criminal cases each filed against the other Monday, but neither side wanted to make the first move.

“If the expectation is for our clients to initiate the settlement talk, that’s a little bit farfetched,” said Teodoro Pastrana, lawyer for Hussein, 30, and Nasser Pangandaman Jr., 27, the sons of Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman.

Nasser Jr. is the mayor of Masiu town in Lanao del Sur province.

Pastrana said the Pangandamans had been “maligned left and right” following the Dec. 26 brawl at Valley Golf and Country Club where initial reports and a blog by 18-year-old Bambee de la Paz laid the blame for the incident on his clients’ laps.

Businessman Delfin de la Paz, 56, and his 14-year-old son Bino were reported beaten bloody by the Pangandaman brothers and their flight mates after De la Paz complained about a breach of golfing etiquette.

First move

The Pangandamans said it was the De la Pazes who instigated the melee when they berated them and poked an umbrella at Nasser Jr.

In a phone interview, Pastrana said the condition set by the De la Pazes that the Pangandamans make the first move toward an out of court settlement was “foul.”

On the other hand, Raymond Fortun, lawyer for the De la Paz family, said the Pangandamans appeared to have “too much pride” in refusing to approach the De la Pazes, whom he described as a “low income family.”

“It’s my clients who suffered injuries,” Fortun said in a separate phone interview.

Father’s fault

As for the child abuse charge the Pangandamans filed against the De la Pazes for the trauma reportedly suffered by Hussein’s 8-year-old son Angelo during the brawl, Fortun said they were barking up the wrong tree.

“If the boy suffered psychological trauma, it was from seeing a 14-year-old bloodied … it’s the boy’s father who should be charged for exposing his own child to certain incidents,” Fortun said.

On Monday, Delfin, Bambee and Bino de la Paz charged the Pangandamans and three unnamed golfing companions with physical injuries in the Antipolo City prosecutor’s office.

The Pangandamans filed their own complaint an hour later, charging the De la Pazes with physical injuries, child abuse, making grave and light threats, and grave coercion.

Pastrana said his clients were planning to file a separate libel suit against the De la Pazes for spreading false accounts about the incident on the blog of Bambee de la Paz, as well as in media reports.

Fortun said they were free to file whatever they wanted, but he would not advise Bambee to shut down her blog, which has been circulating on the Web, reasoning that it was an “accurate” story.

Mutual friends

In Iligan City, where he was attending the first Cabinet meeting of the year at the ancestral home of President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, Secretary Pangandaman admitted being approached by mutual friends to settle the cases involving his sons and the De la Pazes.

Speaking with reporters before the start of the Cabinet meeting, Pangandaman said, “Merong mga tumatawag … merong mga lumapit (There have been calls, I’ve been approached),” but refused to say by whom.

Asked if his family would consider a settlement, he replied: “I’m open to that, but I would like to emphasize that we did not instigate the incident.”

“My sons were hurt and so were the De la Pazes,” he added.

Despite the intense public attention the incident has drawn, he said this had not affected his standing in the Cabinet.

A few days before the brawl, he was named to the new government peace panel that would resume negotiations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF).