MANILA, Philippines - The country’s biggest tobacco cooperatives filed on Friday graft charges against certain officials of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) for allegedly giving unwarranted benefits and advantages to SICPA Products Security S.A. (SICPA) of Switzerland.
Leaders of the Camanggaan Barbar Nagsuputan Farmers Association, the Lucky Star Farmers Association, Barangay Sengngat Ecological Society, Porporiket Farmers Association, and Immayos Farmers Association want BIR Deputy Commissioner Lilia Guillermo and other revenue officials severely punished for trying to implement a technology, which the farmers described as an “industry killer.”
In a nine-page complaint before the Office of the Ombudsman, the tobacco farmers argued that BIR’s insistence to put tax stamps on every pack of locally manufactured cigarettes would mean an additional cost of 52 centavos in the retail price of cigarettes which can “kill both the demand for tobacco products and their livelihood.”
It will be recalled that Guillermo told a congressional inquiry late last year that such an amount aims to cover the cost of the SICPA technology. She further admitted that the cost would be passed on to the consumers.
“The undue burden and additional charges have a devastating effect upon our livelihood because the SICPA system is an industry killer that will cause consumers to shy away from tobacco products due to a system that is unreasonable and unlawfully approved by” Guillermo and the members of the Bureau of Internal Revenue–Build-Operate-Transfer- Pre-qualification, Bids and Awards Committee (BIR-BOT-PBAC), the farmers said.
The farmers added that “the higher cost of cigarette products, which inevitably results in the reduction of the demand, will have a devastating impact on the tobacco industry, which will ultimately be felt by complainants as tobacco farmers.”
The farmers said that BIR officials continued to negotiate with SICPA despite the company’s failure to meet key requirements of the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) law.
Under this law, unsolicited proposals such as that of SICPA must prove that the project has a new concept or technology to offer, that it has no direct government guarantee, and that the agency concerned has accepted the SICPA proposal beyond the period provided under the BOT Law.
The farmers said that the SICPA scheme does not involve new technology since the system being offered is already used in bank notes.
Moreover, the tobacco farmers said SICPA’s proposal also violates the prohibition against direct government guarantee.