INQUIRER Sports

MANILA, Philippines -- (UPDATE 2) Malacañang directed the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday to investigate the brawl at a golf club in Antipolo City that allegedly involved Agrarian Reform Secretary Nasser Pangandaman and businessman Delfin de la Paz.

"The Department of Justice has been directed to investigate the golf course incident and file proper charges against those responsible for any violation of law," Deputy Presidential Spokesman Anthony Golez said in a statement.

"The families of Pangandaman and Dela Paz will equally have their day in court based on the facts and the law," he said.
The younger Pangandaman, Nasser Jr., and his bodyguards allegedly beat up businessman Delfin De la Paz and his 14-year-old son over violations of golf etiquette at the Valley Golf and Country Club in Antipolo City last Friday.

The De la Paz family had filed a formal complaint against the Pangandamans and their bodyguards while insisting that the Agrarian secretary did not lift a finger throughout the brawl.

On the day of the incident, De la Paz?s daughter Bambee came out with a blog entry recounting her families supposed ordeal at the hands of the Pangandaman group.

?The world has gone crazy,? the 18-year-old Bambee wrote, ?You would think politicians were decent people. I guess not. I guess they gang up on 56-year-old men and beat up pleading 14-year-old kids.?

Bambee said her family had a hard time initially identifying the assailants because staffers at the golf club were uncooperative.

She recounted: ?I came back after the fight was over and talked to the receptionists. They say they did not see anything. The general manager of Valley Golf would not give us the names of the men who made my brother's ear bleed. It took him an hour. Maybe even more than that. He seemed to not want to help us. Because, we were against the secretary of the Department of Agrarian Reform and the mayor of Masiu City, Lanao del Sur. They were all scared.?

Bambee?s blog titled ?The World Has Gone Crazy? has since made the rounds of blogosphere, alternately soliciting messages of sympathy and condemnation for the Pangandamans.