Prosecutor who bungled Tan tax case promoted

The chief government prosecutor who handled the P25.2 billion tax evasion case of beer and tobacco magnate and presidential friend Lucio Tan was recently promoted by President Estrada to judge of a lower court.

Senior State Prosecutor Paulita Acosta-Villarante of the Department of Justice was designated judge of Branch 221 of the regional trial court in Mandaluyong City, one of the five additional new courts created by the Supreme Court.

Villarante was the head of the five-man panel who prosecuted but lost the tax fraud suit against Tan before the Marikina Metropolitan Trial Court on December 1998 during the time of former Justice Secretary Serafin Cuevas.

Apart from her, Senior State Prosecutor Japar Dimaampao was also named judge in Mandaluyong. He was a member the three-man panel who junked the credit card fraud charges against the suspected "love bug" hacker last May.

Villarante started her career in government when she joined the Public Attorney’s Office in Sta. Cruz, Laguna where her husband resides, and later the PAO in Makati City.

She next became field attorney of the Commission on Elections in Laguna in the 1980s. Villarante then transferred to the justice department in July 1990 as assistant city prosecutor of Quezon City, after which she went to the main office a year later as state prosecutor.

Villarante finished her law course at the Manuel L. Quezon University. She became senior state prosecutor in 1995.