New judge explains Tan tax fraud case debacle

A former government prosecutor, recently promoted to the bench, rectified yesterday a report in The STAR that she "bungled" the P25.2 billion tax evasion case of tobacco magnate Lucio Tan, saying it was the tax probers of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) who really caused the dismissal of the case.

Senior State Prosecutor Paulita Acosta-Villarante said it was the motion of the BIR to withdraw from the case that led to the dismissal of the charges by Marikina Judge Alex Ruiz, stressing that it was not the fault of the Department of Justice which investigated and finally filed the case in Dec. 1998.

She stressed her handling of the Tan tax fraud suit had nothing to do with her appointment as a judge, saying she, along with her four other colleagues then, had given their "unselfish efforts and dedication with utmost integrity, courage, intelligence, impartiality, without fear or favor."

The newly-promoted judge, who will handle Branch 221 of the Mandaluyong regional trial court, said the STAR article was "baseless, uncalled for and malicious" pointing out that it was an insinuation that she was promoted to judge "not on merit."

She likewise stated in her two-page letter to the STAR: "The word bungled is calculated to induce the readers to speculate something tending to impeach my honesty, integrity and virtue or to besmirch my reputation or to hold me up to public ridicule."

In truth and in fact, she said, the Marikina Metropolitan Trial Court threw out the case because the Department of Justice’s witness, the tax probers of the BIR withdrew from the case "despite our vehement and vigorous objection."

Villarante and Senior State Prosecutor Japar Dimaampao were among the fiscals who were promoted and directed to fill up two of the five new courts in Mandaluyong City.

It was Villarante and her colleagues who filed the multi-billion tax case against the taipan in December 1998 after defense lawyers, led by former Solicitor General Estelito Mendoza, tried to make the case drag since 1993 during the time of former BIR Commissioner Liwayway Vinzons-Chato.