Tuesday, December 15, 1998
Solita Collas-Monsod
What's this crap about Malacañang keeping its hands off the BIR-DOJ "controversy” over the Lucio Tan case? That would be the same as saying that a referee or a judge in boxing match is keeping his hands off the match — after he had climbed into the ring, lied the arm of one protagonist behind his back and given a set of brass knuckles to the other protagonist before the match began. In full view of the spectators, even.
Let's face it. President Estrada has been up to his ears in this case since Day One — or more accurately since Day Minus Thirty or Forty, when he started announcing his choices for government positions even before he was proclaimed winner of the presidential elections.
His choice of Beethoven Rualo as BIR chief was in itself a very strong signal as to where he stood and was going to stand in the Tan case.
Anyone who doesn't agree with this assessment is playing deaf, dumb, and blind, in much the same way that the BIR is now playing deaf, dumb and blind about Tan’s shortcomings where his tax liabilities are concerned.
Rualo is widely perceived by those in the know to have been one of Tan's men in the BIR. It is also well-known that Tan pushed Rualo’s appointment as head of the BIR (see my Dec. 3 column).
Then there is also the matter of those famous photographs: Tan seated beside the Secretary or Finance and the Central Bank Governor, all of them smiling; Tan, in defiance of protocol, standing behind the President and the First Lady at the top of the steps of the PAL plane as they waved goodbye on their way to Malaysia; Tan inside the limousine with Estrada in Malaysia.
But let us get back to the BIR and its claim that there is no evidence against Tan with regard to the criminal cases filed against him by the DOJ.
Per the newspaper reports, Osias Baldovino, chief of the Prosecution and Litigation Division of the BIR and Romeo Buan, his assistant, filed a motion before the Marikina Metropolitan Trial Court to withdraw the criminal complaint against Lucio Tan. The motion, filed in behalf of Beethoven Rualo, states that the aforementioned division thoroughly studied the case and found no evidence that could stand up in court.
The fact that the BIR did this without prior consultation with the DOJ suggests "malice afterthought,” as the lawyers would say, on the former’s part.
But then the BIR has always had this unfortunate tendency towards the side of Tan in other government hearings.
During the cigarette tax hearings in Congress, the BIR went against the Department of Finance, which is its administrative superior, also without prior consultation. And during the Senate hearings chaired by Senator Juan Ponce Enrile on the activities of the Tan's brewery, the BIR was conspicuously absent, earning the ire of the good Senator.
What is curious about the Baldovino Buan motion, however, is not only the motion itself but what went on before -- their past history with regard to this case.
During Chato’s watch at the BIR, it was the same Osias Baldovino who prepared — that is the term that is used in the document -- the "MEMORANDUM OF FACTS AND EVENTS WITH PROOFS TO ESTABLISH TAX EVASION AGAINST FORTUNE TOBACCO CORPORATION.”
Baldovino prepared that document with Rosendo R. Paug, his predecessor, as consultant. That memorandum is very convincing against Lucio Tan -- including a list of the evidence compiled showing that the marketing companies dealing with Lucio Tan were dummies and the individual buyers of the company's cigarettes were "ghosts.”
When did Baldovino have a change of heart?
Romeo Buan, the assistant chief of Baldovino’s division, also had another role to play prior to that infamous motion before the Marikina Trial Court. Buan, as mentioned in my December 3 column, represented the BIR investigating team (formed by Liway Chato to investigate Tan) during the BIR hearings of a Special Panel of Evaluators on the appeal of Tan regarding his 1992 tax deficiency assessment. It was the finding of that investigating team that Chato acted upon (which Baldovino, in his previous incarnation, had found strong) — but which were questioned by Tan and his lawyer Estelito Mendoza.
So, picture, if you will, the BIR investigating team of Liway Chato during the hearings of that Special Panel of Evaluators. They were up against Estelito Mendoza. And they were being represented by Buan, who obviously was not on their side, as subsequent events showed. The team preparing the case against Tan never had a chance.
Is there any chance at all that justice will be served in this case?
The way it looks, with the BIR's credibility shot to pieces, the only way that can happen is if President Estrada forms a team of independent counsel -- tax lawyers and experts from the private sector with known integrity — who will look at all the evidence and make their own conclusions.
That is the challenge.@
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