Terms of service

1. Who you are dealing with

These terms are between you and ASCEND, at Bonifacio High Street, H22X+8V2, 7th Ave, Taguig City, Metro Manila — referred to below as “we”, “us” and “the club”. You can reach us at membership@ascend-performance-ph.com.

Still being settled. The registered company name and SEC registration number will be published here once the terms are finalised.

2. What these terms cover

Sections 3 to 8 apply to anyone using this website. Sections 9 to 21 apply if you apply for, or hold, a membership.

Three other documents sit alongside these terms and are not replaced by them: our privacy notice, which governs personal information; the health declaration and waiver you sign at the club before your first session; and the house rules displayed at the club. If anything here conflicts with a document you have signed, the signed document wins for whatever it covers. If anything here conflicts with the privacy notice about personal information, the privacy notice wins.

3. Changes to these terms

We may change these terms. If a change materially affects you as a member, we will email you at least 30 days beforehand, and you may end your membership within that period and have the unused part of your fee refunded. Changes that affect nobody’s rights — corrections, clarifications, changes the law requires — take effect when posted.

The version in force when you applied or paid is the version that governs what you agreed to.

4. What this website is

This is a marketing and enquiry site. To be exact about it, this website:

• —has no member accounts, no login, and no mobile app
• —has no payment gateway, cart or checkout — no payment of any kind can be made through it
• —stores nothing you submit: your application is checked and sent to us as an email, and there is no database behind this site

Nothing on this website is an offer you can accept. Rates and terms are quoted to you individually after we have read your application and met you. A membership exists only once we confirm your place in writing and the fee is paid.

5. We will never ask you to pay through this website

There is no facility to pay here and there never has been. Fees are settled directly with the person who spoke to you, after your place is confirmed, using account details we give you ourselves.

If you receive a message that appears to be from us asking you to pay through a link, a web form, or an account you were not given directly by us, it is not from us. Please tell us at membership@ascend-performance-ph.com so we can warn other people.

6. Using the website

You may read this site and send us one genuine application. What you may not do is the ordinary list, and we set it out because Philippine law turns on whether access was “without right”, which means it matters that we say what is authorised:

• —reach, or try to reach, any part of this site or its systems not offered to ordinary visitors
• —alter, damage or degrade the site, its data, or the program that receives applications
• —introduce a virus or other harmful code
• —send automated, repeated, false or impersonating applications, or use the form for anything but a genuine enquiry
• —scrape or systematically copy the site
• —probe or test the site's security, or interfere with the bot protection on the form
• —use the site unlawfully, or to send anything defamatory, harassing or threatening

Unauthorised access to, and interference with, a computer system are criminal offences under the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012 (RA 10175) and the E-Commerce Act of 2000 (RA 8792).

7. Our content

The words, photographs, film, design and code on this site are protected by copyright from the moment they were made, without any registration being needed. You may read, print and share this site for your own personal use. You may not republish it commercially, frame it, scrape it, or use our name in a way likely to confuse people about who they are dealing with.

This does not limit fair use under section 185 of the Intellectual Property Code, which we could not remove by contract and are not trying to.

8. Availability, and what we do not disclaim

We try to keep this site available and accurate, but we do not promise it will be uninterrupted or free of every error, and we may change or withdraw any part of it.

That is a statement about a website, not a licence to mislead. It does not limit our responsibility for what we have actually told you about the club, the fee, or what membership includes.

This site links to third parties — our Instagram, our coaches’ accounts, Google Maps. We do not control them and they have their own terms.

9. Membership is by application

Places are limited by the capacity of the floor. Applying does not create a membership, reserve a place, or oblige us to offer you one.

What we do commit to, and mean:

• —Every application is read by a person, and you will hear from us within two working days.
• —We book you in to see the place before anything is agreed.
• —If it is right for both of us we hold your place, and the first year is settled then.

Applications are for people aged 18 and over.

10. What membership is

• —An open floor, not a class timetable. You train your own session, when it suits you.
• —The room and the equipment. Coaching is booked and paid for separately, on top of membership — membership does not include it.
• —A capped room, so the equipment is free when you need it.

The floor is open Every day, 6:00 AM – 10:00 PM

Still being settled. The separate terms for booking coaching — how far ahead a session can be moved, and what happens to a missed one — are being settled and will be published here.

11. The fee

A place is twelve months, paid in full in advance. We will tell you the fee and everything included in it before you pay anything. There are no charges beyond what we quote you.

Still being settled. Whether a membership year renews, and on what notice, is being settled. Until it is published here, no membership renews automatically and nothing will be taken from you without you agreeing to it first.

12. Refunds

This section is written to be accurate rather than favourable, because a refund clause that overreaches is unenforceable in the Philippines and we would rather tell you where you stand.

If you simply change your mind or stop coming after the club has delivered what it said it would, a fee already paid is not refundable on that ground alone. That is the only thing “non-refundable” means in this document.

If the club is not what we told you it would be, the Consumer Act of the Philippines gives you the choice — not us — between having it put right at no extra cost, an immediate refund of what you paid, or a proportionate reduction in the price. We do not pick one of those for you and these terms do not try to.

If the service is rendered unsafely, or we gave you inadequate information about its hazards, our liability under the Consumer Act does not depend on our being at fault, and nothing here limits it.

If we close, move, or cannot open, see section 17.

Refunds are returned by the same route the payment came in, to the person who paid. We do not operate a “no return, no exchange” policy of any kind.

Still being settled. A cooling-off period after payment, a policy for pausing a membership for injury or relocation, and whether a place can be transferred to someone else, are all being settled. Ask us and we will tell you where each has landed.

13. Health, and training safely

Before your first session you complete a health declaration at the club, and where it indicates, get medical clearance. Tell us about anything — a condition, an injury, medication, pregnancy — that affects how you should train, and tell us when it changes. That form is signed on paper at the club and never through this website.

Nothing on this site and nothing from our coaches is medical advice. See a doctor before starting or changing how you train.

We do not guarantee results. What you get out of training depends on your effort, your consistency, your sleep, what you eat and your own physiology, and nothing here should be read as promising a particular outcome.

14. The risks you are accepting

Strength and conditioning training carries real risks, and a general “I accept all risks” means very little — under Philippine law you can only accept a risk you actually knew about and understood. So here they are, specifically. By training here you accept that you may be injured by:

• —muscular strain, sprain, tear and delayed-onset soreness
• —a dropped, mishandled or failed load, including under maximal or near-maximal lifts
• —failure of a barbell, collar, rack, pin, bench, platform or other equipment
• —falls and slips, collisions on the floor, and impact from someone else's equipment
• —joint, tendon, ligament and spinal injury, including aggravation of something you already had
• —cardiac events, fainting, heat illness and dehydration during hard effort
• —your own failure to warm up, to use a spotter, to set safety pins, or to follow instruction or the house rules

15. What we remain responsible for

Accepting those risks does not mean accepting the consequences of our failures. Whatever else these terms say, and whatever a waiver you sign says, nothing excludes or limits our liability for:

• —fraud — a waiver of an action for future fraud is void under the Civil Code and we do not ask for one
• —negligence showing bad faith, or wilful misconduct
• —defects in the way we render our service, or inadequate information about its hazards, for which the Consumer Act makes us liable independently of fault
• —anything else Philippine law does not permit us to exclude

A coach may use hands-on correction to fix a position or prevent an injury. It is always optional, you can decline at any time without giving a reason, and declining changes nothing about your training with us.

We may stop a session or restrict access to particular equipment where we reasonably believe it is unsafe for you or for someone else.

16. The floor, your things, and cameras

The house rules displayed at the club form part of these terms. Lockers are there for your convenience while you train; look after your own belongings and please do not bring valuables.

Filming. Filming your own sets is normal in a strength gym. Filming other people is not. Do not post footage in which another member is recognisable without their agreement, and no cameras or phones in the changing rooms at any time.

Photography by us. We may photograph or film at the club for our own marketing. We will ask you first, separately, and you can say no or change your mind later without it affecting your membership. Consent to appear in our marketing is never a condition of training here.

CCTV. The club runs CCTV in common areas for the safety of members and staff and to look into incidents. It is not run on the basis of your consent — it runs on our legitimate interest, which is what the National Privacy Commission directs for surveillance of this kind. There is no CCTV in the changing rooms, showers or toilets, and there never will be. You can ask to see footage of yourself; we will arrange viewing within five working days, or give you a copy within fifteen.

Still being settled. How long CCTV footage is kept before it is deleted is being settled, and will be stated here and in the privacy notice as a number of days.

17. If we close, move, or cannot open

We are not responsible for failing to perform because of something outside our reasonable control — typhoon, flood, fire, earthquake, loss of power or water, a closure imposed on the building, a government order, a public health measure.

But you have paid for a year, so:

• —For a short closure, we add the days back on to your membership.
• —For a long closure, or if we permanently close or move somewhere that does not work for you, you may end your membership and have the unused part of your fee refunded.

18. Ending a membership

You can stop coming at any time. Whether a fee is refunded is governed by section 12.

We may suspend or end a membership where someone endangers or seriously disturbs another member or a member of staff, repeatedly ignores the house rules after being asked to stop, gives us materially false information about their health or identity, or damages the club deliberately. Unless the behaviour is serious enough that someone has to leave immediately, we will put the problem in writing and give a fair chance to put it right first.

If we end a membership without cause, the unused part of the fee is refunded.

19. If something is wrong

Tell us first — it is faster than anything else and most things are fixable. Write to membership@ascend-performance-ph.com. We will acknowledge within two working days and give you a substantive answer within fifteen calendar days.

Nothing in these terms stops you taking a consumer complaint to the Department of Trade and Industry, or a complaint about how we have handled your personal information to the National Privacy Commission. Those routes are yours and we do not ask you to give them up.

20. Governing law, and where disputes go

These terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of the Philippines. We will try to sort out any dispute by talking about it first.

If that fails, any action arising out of these terms or your membership shall be brought exclusively in the proper courts of Taguig City, Metro Manila, to the exclusion of all other courts — except that nothing here prevents you from bringing a claim in the courts of the place where you live.

There is no arbitration clause in this document, and that is deliberate. Most disagreements between a club and a member are worth far less than the small claims limit, and small claims is faster, cheaper and needs no lawyer. We would rather leave that open to you than close it off.

21. The rest

If any part of these terms turns out to be unenforceable, that part is removed and everything else still stands; and where a clause would be valid if read more narrowly, it applies as narrowly as it needs to.

These terms are in English. If you would rather have them explained in Filipino, ask and we will.

You can agree to these terms electronically, and an electronic agreement is as good as a written one under the E-Commerce Act.

These terms, the privacy notice, the health declaration and waiver, the house rules and the written confirmation of your place are the whole of what is agreed between us — but that does not limit our responsibility for what we actually told you about the club, the fee, or what membership includes.