By Rey E. Requejo

GOVERNMENT lawyers have found cause to file fraud charges against former hotelier and book author Erlinda Panlilio and four other people, and allegedly for the illegal sale of a property on Kalaw Street in Manila where the former Luneta Hotel is located.

State Prosecutor II Phillip de la Cruz said syndicated estafa charges would be filed against Panlilio, her son Jose Marcel Panlilio, Marlo Cristobal, Nicole Morris, and Herminio Valerio for their role in the sale of the 499-square-meter property for P25 million to Beaumont Holding Corp. on May 15, 2007.

De la Cruz said the land used to be owned by Rizal Park Hotel Inc., which was controlled by the Panlilio family. The family also owned the former Philippine Village Hotel, the former Silahis International Hotel (now the Grand Boulevard Hotel), and Puerto Azul Beach Resort in Cavite.

Erlinda has retired from the hotel business but is still active in the Zonta International women?s group. She is also an award-winning book author.

But lawyer Santiago Alvarez Jr. said the Panlilios had already sold their shares of stock in Rizal Park Hotel Inc. and the Luneta Hotel property to H.E. Heacock Resources Corp. 34 years before the sale to Beaumont.

Alvarez, who was then Heacock?s corporate secretary, said the deeds of assignment were executed on Sept. 15, 1973. The Panlilios delivered all their 5,000 shares in Rizal Park Hotel Inc. as well as the title covering the Luneta Hotel property.

He said the Panlilios had tried to sell the property on Sept. 26, 1987, when their lawyer, Vincent Jariol, executed a deed of absolute sale involving the Luneta property in favor of JBA Group Management and Development Corp.

But the sale was thwarted when the Manila Registrar of Deeds questioned the authenticity of the land title, and then forwarded it to the National Bureau of Investigation that later reported that the document was a fake, Alvarez said.

The lawyer claimed that Marlo Cristobal, one of the respondents, petitioned the Manila Regional Trial Court to issue a new copy ozf the land title covering the Luneta Hotel property, and purportedly because the original had been lost. The court granted the petition.

Alvarez said he recently learned that Rizal Park Hotel Inc.?s registration as a corporation was revoked by the Securities and Exchange Commission and another company, Rizal Park Hotel Corp., was registered on Feb. 7, 2007, almost three months before the sale to Beaumont. The Panlilios, Morris, Cristobal and Valerio were the registered officers of the new company.

The property was sold under the name Rizal Park Hotel Corp. instead of Rizal Park Hotel Inc.

The Justice Department prosecutor also recommended that Cristobal be charged for falsification of public document for trying to secure the issuance of a new owner?s copy of the land title, when it was not missing and was instead in the possession of H.E. Heacock Resources Corp.