CA: Ver’s ex-partner can enjoy Forbes Park privileges

The Court of Appeals has dismissed a petition to stop banker Edna Camcam, the longtime partner of the late military chief of dictator Ferdinand Marcos, from enjoying homeowner privileges in the exclusive Forbes Park subdivision in Makati City.

The petitioner, Dr. Daniel Vasquez, now owns Camcam’s mansion on Cambridge Circle, North Forbes after the property was foreclosed in 1994 by United Coconut Planters Bank.

Vasquez said he allowed Camcam, the former partner of Gen. Fabian Ver, and her daughter to live in the mansion without paying rent on the request of Ver, his longtime friend.

‘Illegal occupants’

But Vasquez protested against a decision by officers of the Forbes Park Association Inc. (FPAI) extending homeowner privileges to Camcam and her daughter, Ma. Victoria Gonzales Joaquin.

Camcam and Joaquin, he said, were illegal occupants of the property and had already been ordered by a Makati court to vacate it in February 2014.

Vasquez petitioned the Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB) on April 15, 2015, to stop FPAI from giving homeowner privileges to Camcam and her daughter.

But in a decision issued last week, the Court of Appeals’ Eleventh Division upheld the decision of the HLURB to dismiss Vasquez’s complaint because he did not include Camcam as a respondent.

Party to complaint

While Vasquez said that including Camcam as a respondent would be tantamount to acknowledging her right to the property, the court maintained that Camcam was an indispensable party to the complaint.

“The absence of one such party renders all subsequent actions of the court null and void for want of authority to act, not only as to the absent parties but even as to those present,” the appeals court said.

“Whatever decision the [HLURB] arbiter [issued] would not bind Camcam, [she] not being a party to the case,” it added.

Any HLURB decision in Vasquez’s favor would be “a clear violation of Camcam’s right to due process.”

The resolution was written by Associate Justice Perpetua Atal-Pano and concurred in by Associate Justices Ricardo Rosario and Nina Antonio-Valenzuela.