Just an Elaborate Script

Today

Tuesday, December 22, 1998

By Luis R. Mauricio

ERAP Estrada has done it again—say one thing one day and say the opposite thing the next day.

Before he left (on his third junket abroad) for Vietnam cum side-trip to Bangkok, Erap refused to intervene in what everybody deemed contradictory voices of government offices about the tax fraud and tax evasion cases against taipan Lucio Tan and his Fortune Tobacco Corp. The Department of Justice, through Secretary Serafin Cuevas, filed the charges against Tan and Fortune Tobacco in court, while the Bureau of Internal Revenue, through Commissioner Beethoven Rualo (apparently with the approval of Finance Secretary Edgardo Espiritu), asked the court to throw the same charges out.

The BIR contended that filing charges of tax fraud and tax evasion is its exclusive prerogative; and the reason it had not done so against Tan is the lack of evidence to support such charges.

It was obvious that two departments—under which the BIR functions—were running at cross-purposes. Although Erap had earlier counseled his officials to speak with just one voice, he allowed the two opposing voices (Cuevas's and Rualo's) to reach full crescendo.

Erap had said, before leaving for Vietnam, that he did not want to intervene in the work of the justice department, especially on a matter pertaining to cases filed in court.

Few believed that no-touch declaration, of course. Most understood that Erap just did not want to appear as overly favoring a taipan who was a major contributor to his presidential campaign.

Erap knows that people know he had gone out his way to lift Lucio Tan from the Philippine Airlines mess. After intervening in the labor problem Tan had with the PAL employees, Erap tried to persuade Cathay Pacific to enter into a merger agreement that might forestall the demise of the national flag carrier.

Failing in this, Erap toyed with the idea of having the government's financial institutions extend Tan and PAL financial assistance. Encountering resistance to this proposal, Erap next thought of letting Tan and PAL have a share of the Miyazawa Fund, the $30-billion loan offered by Japan to Asian countries hit by the region's financial crisis. Anything to help Lucio Tan and bail out PAL from the throes of death.

Thus, Erap's no-touch policy on the Tan tax case was meant to give the message to one and all that, for him, walang kaibigan when government interests are concerned.

That no-touch pose, however, did not last long. After two days in Vietnam, while on the plane on his way to Bangkok, Erap strode to where the reporters were seated and gave a statement that completely reversed his previous one.

He prefaced his remarks by citing statements supposedly made by Cuevas that Malacañang had been pressuring him to withdraw the cases against Tan and Fortune Tobacco. Erap wondered why his own justice secretary could make such statements.

Then he concluded: "Maybe he [Cuevas] committed a blunder by filing a case which does not have enough evidence."

"We have said time and again," Erap added, "that people in our country should be charged if there is evidence for the charges. If there is no evidence, they should not be charged.

"It's the BIR that's involved here. The BIR should be the complainant, not the justice department. It goes to show that the justice secretary committed a big blunder. He should have coordinated with the BIR people so the case will be strong."

Erap’s words betray his thinking that Secretary Cueva’s blunder was due to his defiance of Erap's advice. This has led many observers to predict that, soon as possible—perhaps upon his arrival from Bangkok—Erap would give the walking papers to his justice secretary. And they have precedents to back them up.

Previously, Erap fired two commissioners of the Presidential Commission on Good Government for defying government policy. What was their fault? They refused to sign a resolution allowing PCGG Chairman Magdangal Elma to invest the $580-million fund of the Marcos Swiss deposits held in escrow by the Philippine National Bank.

In another instance, Erap fired the three top men of the National Telecommunications Commission—again for acts contrary to government policy. What was the policy in question? The policy to hold in abeyance the grant of frequency licenses to cellular phone companies.

Observers deduced that such precedents could augur Secretary Cuevas's dismissal. But Erap's trusted men in Malacañang maintain that the President has no plans to replace Cuevas.

If that is so, then the Erap watchers are right, after all. Erap's arrangement with Cuevas is part of an elaborate script. Cuevas's blunder in filing the cases against Tan and Fortune Tobacco, without first coordinating with the BIR, would help explain the court's eventual dismissal of such charges. With such a dismissal, nobody could say that Erap and Malacañang had been favoring a taipan in repayment of past financial favors.

"Is it my fault,” Erap Estrada could always say after that, "that the tax cases of Lucio Tan and Fortune Tobacco had been thrown out by the court?” Ayos!