Tag Archives: Juan B. Santos

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Emil Guillermo: L’Amande bakery owners flee country, say to lawyers they won’t defend suit, then say to me they will.

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If you’ve been following my reporting on the  civil lawsuit alleging trafficking and labor violations against the L’Amande bakeries, owned by the scion of one of the Philippines elite families, then you’ll want to see the new twists in the case.
The lawyers of bakery owner Ana Moitinho de Almeida have told the lawyers for the 11 former workers suing Almeida, that the owners have fled the country and would no longer be defending the suit.

But this is inconsistent with what Ms.Almeida communicated to me.

Is it just a ploy?   This comes after the plaintiffs failed to attach the Almeidas’ assets, which have been re-positioned to seemingly be out of reach of the court.  The first court date had been set for late September.

See my story in the Philippine Inquirer here.

blog, Filipino, news, politics

Emil Guillermo: Owner of closed Filipino bakeries in LA speaks about the shutdown, and on the lawsuit that has rocked her business and family life.

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In a direct communication with Emil Guillermo Media, Ana Moitinho de Almeida,the daughter of Juan B. Santos, and the co-owner with her husband Gonzalo Moitinho de Almeida of two recently closed California bakeries, admitted that millions of their joint assets were sold recently—not to protect or hide assets—but to fund their expensive legal battle against 11 former employees.

The Almeidas were socked this spring with a $1 million dollar civil suit alleging labor trafficking, labor rules violations, and immigration violations at their L’Amande bakeries in Beverly Hills and Torrance.

But in the last few months, the Almeidas have been liquidating and re-positioning assets, including their bakeries,real estate investments, and Los Angeles area home.

“We needed to find funding somewhere,” Almeida answered in response to my questions via e-mail. “Closure of the bakeries? How can a business survive when …charges, augmented by aggressive press, has descended without mercy, or fair investigation?”

It is the first time the Almeidas have made direct public comments on their asset situation.

Almeida insisted it wasn’t to hide or keep money from the suit, but an attempt to fight what she calls are unfair charges being made by E-2 visa workers whom she sponsored in an “investor visa program.”

Almeida has been posting pictures of her former employees showing that the workers’ allegations are trumped up charges and don’t reflect how they were being treated while working for the Almeida bakeries.

When I asked her why she has been quiet on the matter, she said: “How could I not have declined at that time when the mother load of a lawsuit just hit us? We are a small bakery. We did not have lawyers standing by to help us.”

I’ll have more from Almeida. In the meantime, here’s my  piece on the Almeida’s sale of assets, as I first reported  in the Philippine Inquirer, Manila’s top daily.

See my latest columns on the AALDEF blog.

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Emil Guillermo: Sensitive Filipinos criticize my reporting on the Beverly Hills Bakery lawsuit filed by 11 employees against owner Analiza Moitinho de Almeida.

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Just saw the hit piece another Filipino columnist wrote criticizing my reporting on the lawsuit against Beverly Hills Bakery owner, Ana Moitinho de Almeida, her husband, Goncarlo, and their corporate entities.

Just want to point out, that my reporting included three of the principals  involved, the people who filed the suit and their stories. I didn’t pass judgment. That’s what the courts are for.

But the critic puts much weight on the fact that these former employees who are suing are much closer to the family. So that puts them in a different class? Or makes them easier to manipulate and to be taken advantage of?

The critic also makes it sound like I made up the stories.

It’s all public record in the lawsuit. I just humanized the story by actually reaching out to talk to real people–on both sides.

The Moitinho de Almeidas were contacted and declined an interview.

The critic seems to make a lot about these former employees  gambling and going on trips in the U.S., as if that alone proves anything besides their personal preferences. They weren’t free to leave the country or their jobs  by their visa, and they did talk about real threats to their families back home.

But the bottom line seems to be the critic’s concern that I invoked the name of Juan B. Santos, the head of the Social Security System in the Philippines, and the former head of Nestle in the Philippines.

He’s the father of Ana, the baker. He also had some financial involvement with the bakeries of his daughter. No charges are against him, but the actions of his daughter, and their relationship is newsworthy.

If Ana is as innocent as the critic claims, what difference does it make to mention Santos, who was one  of the Hyatt 10 who pressed for honest government during the Arroyo era.

We know what happened in the Arroyo era. It was Marcos Lite.  So Santos should be a hero, somewhat.

I can’t fault the critic for wanting to defend his friend.  But my reporting is sound. Other U.S. news organizations reported the story. The facts are all there. If they omitted Santos’ name it’s because they are U.S. based media and not Philippine-based as was my original column for Inquirer.net.

I took an extra step by talking to the employees who sued, who told me their stories. But I also gave the Moitinho de Almeidas a chance to respond.

The subsequent story is even more telling, that the Moitinho de Almeidas are in a second legal battle about the bakery with their own relatives. The relatives say its intimidation. The Moitinho de Almeidas once again declined to comment.

I reported this last week, based on legal docs that  are public record. But my offer stands: I would love to tell the  Moitinho de Almeida’s story objectively and without the bias shown by my critic.

My interests are only in the truth.

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