President's Message - Quo vadis, NOMADS?

“The greed of gain has no time or limit to its capaciousness.

..It has pity neither for beautiful nature nor for living human

beings. It is ruthlessly ready without a moment’s hesitation

to crush beauty and life”

- Rabindranath Tagore , Indian author

On September 3, Lolong, a 50-year old crocodile was ensnared alive in Agusan del Sur. The 6.4-meter long reptile terrorized the small town for years with the residents claiming that their way of life has been adversely affected for fear of being attacked.

So when Lolong was captured, a minifestival, a local luau, if you will, was held to celebrate the end of the croc’s reign of terror. Others aren’t so lucky because their own predators are still at large - sneaky, ready to sink their teeth into any flesh at any opportune time – constantly and patiently waiting to make the kill.

Nomads lies right smack in the middle of a city, but it, too, has its own fears, even terror – although not from the reptilian kind – but from its own members.

Case in point: the 2008 Board of Directors was caught flatfooted by the Watch- List Order issued last August 22, 2011 by the Department of Justice upon the request of Supervising Commissioner Manuel Gaite of the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The case filed by the SEC with the DoJ was based on a complaint of Edward Du, together with 19 other members. NSC was then trying to determine whether the general membership would be interested in establishing Nomads Land Corp. so that it can purchase the land.

From the mere act of saving the club, the scenario moved to an entirely new level – a complaint for alleged violation of the provision of Republic Act 8799 otherwise known as the Securities Regulation Code of the Philippines was filed against the BoD of NSC. This is a serious turn of events for a 97-year-old family sports club which merely fought to keep its facilities and wide open greenery from being turned into ugly rows of townhouses. That is a game changer.

But this is barely scratching the surface of the actions taken by people who supposedly love the club. That action made in the SEC may have succeeded in impeding the club from raising the money to purchase the land – but hold that champagne bottle just a little longer before popping it. A club is made up of ALL its members, and most of them saw through the great obstruction and thwarted a sinister scheme. We want to keep our club, thank you.

And so it came to pass that Nomads was able to buy the land, thanks to the generous support of one member and the vigilance, and tenacity of some. The club got the TCTs issued by the Registrar of Deeds of Paranaque. Why not? Nersan Corp is a willing seller and Nomads is a willing buyer. That’s how you make a deal – making two parties who are willing and able to trade, meet – the last time we checked, unless somebody rewrote the book on Dealmaking 101.

Not until in March 2011, Multi-sphere Trading Corp., a majority-owned corporation by the Hemlani family, filed a case against Nersan Corp. with Nomads as intervenor. Multisphere claimed NSC was disqualified to own the contested properties and that our club’s AOI and by-laws do not allow it to own land. In June 2011, the Parañaque Regional Trial Court issued an order “erroneously disqualifying NSC from owning the contested properties”. In other words, NSC must return the titles to the sellers – you work it out.

Nomads argued that “the purchase of the properties is essential to the purposes stated in the Articles of Incorporation of NOMADS and that Multi-sphere’s claim that NSC has no intent to acquire the properties is bereft of merit.” In my own words, complete and utter hogwash.

So what is the message here? It is simply that it is not possible for a willing seller and willing buyer to enter into a commercial transaction. Not in Paranaque, anyway. No, this is not gag humor. This is actually reality in living color.

What does this mean to you, dear members? Simply, Multi-sphere has succeeded in asking the Paranaque RTC to revert the land titles back to the previous owners, the Nersan Corporation, which was the willing seller to Nomads. Hello??? Why? The question actually answers itself.

Multi-Sphere is the same corporation that ironically signed a compromise agreement with Nomad Sports Club and Nersan Corp., stipulating among others that NSC can purchase the land from Nersan Corp. as long as Nomads could make the payments, and Multi-Sphere being able to exercise the secondoption should NSC fail. The same corporation then filed a case to have this overturned.

Our legal fees have sky rocketed due to the actions spearheaded by Ed Du and Multi-Sphere BoD members are beleaguered and inconvenienced, the club could barely move forward, and the psychological stress suffered by those named in the SEC and RTC cases is plainly intolerable.

This is what is happening to our club, and it is not pretty: “MADNESS, MADNESS, ALL is MADNESS.”

Betrayal, disloyalty, treachery are meted the maximum penalty in other organizations whose officials and members are sworn to uphold the highest ethical standards. Our club must have nothing less. But let’s break ours down to one word we could all live by: DECENCY.

The push has come to shove. Let our collective voice be heard loud and clear.