TWO former executives of the Department of Finance – One-Stop-Shop Inter-Agency Tax Credit and Duty Drawback Center (DOF-Center) have been convicted by the Sandiganbayan for multiple counts of violations of the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act (RA 3019).
Found guilty on 24 counts of graft each were former DOF-Center deputy executive director Uldarico Andutan Jr. and Textile Division reviewer Asuncion Magdaet.
Also convicted were acting deputy executive director Raul de Vera (two counts); tax specialists Annabelle Diño (six counts), Merose Tordesillas (four counts), Gregoria Cuento (two counts), and Mark Binsol (one count); and evaluators Gemma Abara (four counts), Cherry Gomez (one count), and Purita Napeñas (one count).
They were each sentenced to six to eight years imprisonment per count with perpetual disqualification from holding public office.
Based on the court’s calculations, the 24 cases involved fraudulently issued tax credit certificates totaling P61.508 million.
On the other hand, the defendants were acquitted on 16 separate counts of the same criminal offense due to weak evidence to prove that the government suffered undue injury in the sum of P41.535 million.
It took 24 years from the time all 40 charges were filed by the Office of the Ombudsman in 1999 until the Sandiganbayan Third Division rendered its decision last August 11.
Presiding Justice Amparo M. Cabotaje-Tang penned the 155-page decision with concurrences from Associate Justices Bernelito R. Fernandez and Ronald B. Moreno.
In convicting the accused, the court noted that the DOF-Center executives failed to exercise even ordinary diligence in evaluating, processing, and approving the tax credit certificates (TCCs).
The court noted that there was a glaring red flag in the transactions — the fact that two officials of TCC applicant firm Scope Industries Inc. were the ones who stamped all support documents as “certified true copies” even if the papers came from various private entities including transportation companies, forwarding agents, and shippers or consignees from Taiwan, Singapore, Thailand, and Hong Kong.
“Predictably, as shown by the evidence presented by the prosecution… the bills of lading which Scope attached to nineteen (19) of its applications… turned out to be spurious,” the court pointed out.
Representatives from K Line and Citadel Shipping disputed the authenticity of the documents and presented proof to show that these bills of lading, as submitted by Scope, did not originate from them.
Tax credits are incentives given by the government to boost the competitiveness of locally manufactured products by allowing manufacturers or exporters to reasonably enjoy their credits for taxes and duties paid on their raw materials and other inputs used in their products.
Since a TCC is equivalent to a waiver of tax duties that would otherwise become revenue for the treasury, the court said it was the duty of the accused to exercise “reasonable caution” to avoid undue damage and prejudice to the government.
“None of the accused evaluators and reviewers flagged the dubious circumstances surrounding the “certified” documents submitted by Scope Industries, Inc. to support its applications which resulted in the issuance of forty (40) TCCs,” the court said.
“Evidently, gross inexcusable negligence attended the issuance of 40 TCCs worth P103,042,663.00 when the accused evaluators and reviewers alike simply accepted the documents submitted before them as authentic and without flaws, without further verifying the same to determine their worth,” it added.
