Virus casualties: Night club chain to fade out lights, Corregidor ferry service to stop

Some of the evening lights in Metro Manila will soon be on a fade out.

The country's “king of night entertainment” is bowing out from the glitters of night clubs that employed many attractive bar girls in select Metro Manila districts.

Jolly Ting, chairman and chief executive of publicly-listed Jolliville Holdings Corp., has sent out separation pay to employees of several high-end entertainment clubs and KTV bars in Metro Manila’s pleasure districts, including Pegasus Ultimate Men’s Club, and Heartbeat Mega KTV, a well-informed source said Tuesday.

Jolliville rents out the facilities to these night clubs and KTV bars while an outsourcing unit of the company provides the staff and talents for their operations.

Meanwhile, another leisure company —Sun Cruises Inc., provider of ferry services to Corregidor Island—on Tuesday announced its closure effective May 16.

READ: Declared coronavirus cases top seven million globally: AFP

On Facebook, SCI posted a statement on the stoppage of its operations servicing Corregidor Island.

"We wish to convey our warmest thanks for all the support and patronage you have shared with us all these years," read a portion of the statement.

Speaking to GMA News Online, seen nationwide, Tina Cortez, president of Sun Cruises, admitted that the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the subsequent lockdown were among the reasons for the decision.

"We have been around since 1988. Imagine, more than three decades already, but when we started the year, there was the Taal eruption, which affected tourism," Cortez began in a phone interview.

She added that a guest in March tested positive "and so we were asked to close, and we haven't opened since."

The Standard source said at least 10 big night clubs, including Pegasus and Heartbeat in Quezon City and Genie Magic KTV in Cainta, Rizal that have been non-operational over the past three months, were not expected to reopen this year because of strict social distancing rules of health authorities.

“Kalungkot nga sir and nangyari sa amin (What happened to us is saddening),” said Jeremy, a “talent” at Heartbeat.

Gerry, another staff, said they were assured of separation pay, while a supervisor confirmed the notice of closure due to COVID-19.

The clubs have been shut down since March 16 when the government declared Metro Manila under the enhanced community quarantine.

Jolliville Holdings through corporate secretary Ortrud Ting-Yao and legal counsel Maria Joy Ting had yet to respond to queries from Manila Standard at presstime.

Calls made to Heartbeat and Pegasus went unanswered.

Sources said thousands of regular employees and talents, mostly dancers and guest relations officers, under Servwell BPO International Inc., Jolliville’s outsourcing unit which provides the staffing needs of different KTV operators in Metro Manila, were expected to lose their source of income.

The closure of the high-end bars and night clubs in Metro Manila followed the decision of Angie Mead King to shut down several branches of Victoria Court motels as the government continued to implement social distancing rules across all industries.

Night clubs were blamed for the spread of the virus in South Korea when the Northeast Asian country tried to relax the restrictions on mobility last month.

Jolliville said since its establishment in September 1986, the company underwent a transformation to a holding company.

The 75-year-old Ting, known as “entertainment king” in the 1980s and 1990s, earlier said he diversified from night club operation to property development, tourism and resorts, power generation and water distribution.

READ: WHO: COVID-19 pandemic worsening

Ting started in the night club business in the early 1980s, then branched out into real estate venture with Jolliville Realty and Development Co. Inc. in September 1986. The SEC approved the change in the corporate name of JRDCI to Jolliville Holdings Corp. in April 1999.

Previously, Ting in 2017 won a trademark case against fastfood chain operator Jollibee Foods Corp. over the use of the name Jolliville.

Jollibee filed a notice of opposition in January 2013 against the application of Jolliville Holdings Corp. for the registration of its corporate name and logo “Jolliville.”

Jolliville said in an appeal that the use of “Jolli” was a tribute to its founder Jolly Ting and that Jollibee could not claim exclusive and immediate association of ‘Jolli’ or ‘Jolly’ as there were other registered corporations and trademarks using the same name.

Jolliville said its name was a trademark formed in combination of Jolly Ting’s first name and ‘ville’, resulting in a coined word suggestive of the kind of business he was into, which was real estate.

Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines director-general Josephine Santiago reversed the 2014 decision of the agency’s bureau of legal affairs and granted Jolliville’s appeal for the registration of its corporate name.

“While appellee [Jollibee] was making it big in the food service business, so was Mr. Jolly L. Ting in the night entertainment business. As the owner of a string of night entertainment establishments such as Pegasus, Discovery, Mega Heartbeat, Lexus, he earned the moniker king of night entertainment,” IPOPHL said.