HLURB says BF Homes exec ‘coercing people’

The Housing and Land Use Regulatory Board (HLURB) management committee, which is struggling for control of the United BF Homeowners Associations Inc., said yesterday the UBFHAI’s president is forcing BF Homes Parañaque residents to pay for association stickers or be unable to enter their own subdivision.

UBFHAI president Celso Reyes said they are still implementing a “no entry, no exit” policy for vehicles that do not bear the organization’s official sticker or that issued by the Las Piñas city government for “friendship roads.”

Aristotle Sarmiento, who chairs the management committee, said Reyes is “coercing people” and “physically removing mancom guards” at the subdivision gates but the Las Piñas police “refuses to act on our complaints.”

He said the mancom and Reyes’ group are struggling for control over the BF Homes gates.

Reyes said BF Homes’ Concha Cruz, Southland, and Naga gates are closed to motorists who do not recognize his and his group’s authority to regulate traffic in the subdivision.

Reyes, in an interview with The STAR, said while it is true that the El Grande, Aguirre, and Elizalde gates are open to the public by virtue of a local ordinance, motorists going through them will have to take the same route in exiting because they will not be allowed to pass through the subdivision’s Las Piñas and Muntinlupa gates.

He said car stickers for residents are sold for P150 each while those for non-residents cost P1,000, mainly because the UBFHAI discourages non-residents from using subdivision roads since BF Homes connects the cities of Parañaque, Las Piñas, and Muntinlupa.

“We have the mandate of our constituents. If they think I am doing something wrong, they can try and impeach me. We have by-laws to follow, we have a process,” he said.

Reyes also has no plans of relinquishing his post after the HLURB declared that an election will be conducted once its management committee finishes its audit of the UBFHAI by the first week of February.

He said the whole case, which stemmed from allegations of graft, is subject to appeal and not yet final and executory. He plans to elevate the case to Malacañang and the Supreme Court.

Sarmiento said the HLURB’s orders are “interlocutory” in nature, which means that no final order is needed to implement it.

H e said the only way to counter an interlocutory order is to secure a temporary restraining order.

The mancom is expected to call for an election shortly after Feb. 8 as their extended mandate to run the day-to-day affairs of the UBFHAI expires.

Sarmiento said they will submit a partial audit report to the HLURB since they were not allowed to open the UBFHAI’s bank accounts to complete their task. – Michael Punongbayan