Supreme Court asked to order NBI to examine evidence in tax credit scam case

MANILA, Philippines -  The Supreme Court (SC) was asked yesterday to order the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to examine the evidence used in the indictment of a businesswoman for the multimillion-peso tax credit scam involving former Finance executives and several businessmen.

Grace Chingkoe, corporate secretary of Filstar Textile Industrial Corp., specifically sought the examination of the authenticity of the document she allegedly signed that enabled the company to secure the supposedly fraudulent P73.76-million tax credit grant from 1995 to 1997 through 28 tax credit certificates (TCCs).

In a four-page motion, she claimed that her signature in the Sept.12, 1996 certificate issued by Filstar that authorized a certain Rodel Rodriguez to sign the contracts, documents and agreements relating to the corporation’s application for tax credit was forged.

Chingkoe, through lawyer Roderick Rabino, argued that although the Court is not a trier of fact, it could still resolve the issue of forgery by ordering the NBI to examine the signature on the document “in the interest of justice.”

 “For the foregoing reason and in view of the materiality of such determination, petitioner, consistent with substantial justice, respectfully begs leave from the Honorable Court and prays that her alleged signature appearing on the hereto attached Sept. 12, 1996 secretary’s certificate to be examined by the NBI to determine it authenticity,” she appealed.

The Ombudsman had used the assailed certificate in filing charges of plunder against her before the Sandiganbayan

But the accused stressed that the Ombudsman had no proof of her direct participation in the scam other than the forged certificate.

In the plunder complaint of the Ombudsman before Sandiganbayan, Chingkoe was accused of authorizing a certain Rodel Rodriguez to sign the contracts, documents, agreements relating to the corporation’s application for tax credit.

But she claimed that even the signature of Rodriguez in the deeds of assignment of TCCs had been confirmed by the NBI as forgeries and such finding was adopted by the Ombudsman in its fact-finding report dated Sept. 5, 2001.

 “Even during the preliminary investigation stage of the case, petitioner vehemently and categorically denied having issued the said secretary’s certificate and had repeatedly stressed that the signature appearing therein is patently and manifestly not her signature. It takes no expert to see the marked and glaring discrepancies between her signature as appearing in her counter and rejoinder affidavits and that which appears in the forged certificate,” she explained.

Also, she said that there is absolutely no showing that the accused public officers in the plunder case have amassed, accumulated or acquired ill-gotten wealth from the issuance of the TCCs to Filstar.

She pointed out that the dispositive portion of the Feb. 23, 2009 resolution of the Ombudsman recommending the filing of a case for plunder “clearly suggests that the value of the TCCs amounting to P73,762,618 could not have bee amassed, illegally acquired or embezzled, misappropriated or converted by the public officials of the Center for their own benefit...”

 “Moreover, contrary to the allegations in the information charging petitioner for plunder, no public funds was converted, misappropriated or misused by the accused public officials. As a matter of fact, the Resolution of the OMB clearly admits that the amount of P73,762,618 merely represents the face value of the 28 TCCs which the government did not collect, hence cannot be considered as ‘public funds’ but only unrealized taxes,” she said.

“While the resolution of the Ombudsman found that the government suffered loss in terms of revenues and taxes which it could have collected from Filstar, Petron, and Shell, the alleged loss cannot give rise to the crime of plunder as it does not equate to any of the accused amassing, accumulating, and acquiring ill-gotten wealth. The resolution erroneously equated loss of government revenues to the acquisition of ill-gotten wealth. The failure to establish accumulation of ill-gotten wealth, especially on the part of the accused public officers is crucial. Without any person accumulating any ill-gotten wealth, the alleged offense would at most be for violation of R.A. 3019 section 3(e), the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act,” she claimed.