Accused in tax credit scam appeals to Supreme Court

MANILA, Philippines – A woman accused in a multimillion-peso tax credit scam has asked the Supreme Court (SC) to reconsider its ruling upholding her indictment for plunder.

Grace Chingkoe told the SC she had no participation in the P73.76-million tax credit scam in 1996 as she was just a nominee of her brother Felix Chingkoe in Filstar Textile Industrial Corp.

Her signature in a secretary’s certificate dated Sept. 12, 1996 authorizing individuals to apply for tax credit had been forged, she added.

Chingkoe said the plunder case has no basis since the four tax credit certificates amounting to P12,913,740 is P37 million short of the P50-million requirement for plunder, she added.

“Since the only basis of the Office of the Ombudsman in recommending the prosecution of herein petitioner for the crime of plunder is the purported execution of the Sept. 12, 1996 secretary’s certificate, the same should inevitably fail as only P12,913,740 worth of TCCs were allegedly issued pursuant thereto,” she said.

“It would be a flagrant violation of the right of the petitioner to due process if she will be prosecuted for plunder in relation to the TCCs issued prior to the certificate she purportedly executed dated Sept. 12, 1996.”

The Office of the Ombudsman has no proof of her direct participation in the scam other than her forged signature on the secretary’s certificate, she said.

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

However, she said Rodriguez’s signature on the deeds of assignment of TCCs had been confirmed as a forgery by the National Bureau of Investigation.

“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,” she said.

“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.”

Chingkoe was accused of defrauding the government of some P73.76 million in 28 TCCs granted to Filstar Textile Industrial Corp. from 1995 to 1997 based on alleged bogus documents.

She served as corporate secretary of Filstar, a manufacturer and importer-exporter of yarns, threads, laces and other fabrics incorporated in 1989.

The TCCs were supposed to be used by Filstar to pay its tax and duties obligations.

Instead they were transferred to Petron Corp. and Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. as payment for fuel excise tax.

Other accused in the plunder case include deputy director of tax credit center Uldarico Andutan Jr., reviewer Asuncion Magdaet, tax specialist Rowena Malonzo and Filstar representative Catalina Aranas Bautista.