MANILA – A Supreme Court division dismissed the petition filed by a tax informer compelling the government to pay him close to P12 trillion for his role in the recovery of the ill-gotten wealth of the Marcos family and their cronies.
The petition for mandamus filed by Danilo Lihaylihay lacked merit, the high court’s Third Division said in a 22-page decision dated July 23.
Respondents in the case included former national treasurer Roberto C. Tan, former Finance secretary Margarito B. Teves, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas governor, and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources secretary.
The grant of informers’ reward depends on considerations by appropriate government officers under Republic Act 2338, or “An Act to Provide for Reward to Informers of Violations of the Internal Revenue and Customs Laws,” the Court said.
Under the law, information supplied must be new or not yet known to the Bureau of Internal Revenue. It must not pertain to a pending or previously investigated case, and must have actually led to or was the actual cause for discovering frauds upon tax laws, the Court noted.
Moreover, information must have actually led to the recovery of sums relating to the fraud, as well as the conviction and/or punishment of the liable persons, it added.
Lihaylihay, identifying himself as a confidential informant of the states, based his claim on the two letters dated March 11, 1987 he sent to lawyer Eliseo Pitargue, former head of the BIR’s Presidential Commission on Good Government Task Force, on the Marcoses’ ill-gotten wealth.
In one letter, Lihayhay informed told the BIR-PCGG about the ill-gotten wealth of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos deposited in 177 banks in 72 countries and include tons of gold and 500,000 pieces of 10-carat diamonds.
The second letter concerned alleged dollar deposits at the Union Bank of Switzerland of Marcos’ daughter, Irene Marcos-Araneta.
In 2006, Lihaylihay also wrote to BIR commissioner Mario C. Bufiag demanding payment of the 25-percent informer’s reward on the P18.2 billion the government supposedly recovered through compromise agreements with the Marcoses.
He also insisted on the need for the government to collect Fortune Tobacco Corp.’s tax deficiencies amounting to P97 billion to recover P47-trillion deposits in Switzerland, and to deliver to him the informer’s rewards for the recovery of the said ill-gotten wealth.
Lihaylihay said the government owes him a total of P11.875 trillion and P50 billion, representing his reward for the jewelry recovered from former first lady Imelda Marcos and several government lands as informer’s rewards.
But the Supreme Court noted that Lihaylihay, in his 1987 letter to the BIR-PCGG, made broad claims on the Marcos family’s ill-gotten wealth and stressed the need for the government to recover them.
He failed to cite specific acts of tax fraud and violations of Internal Revenue and Customs laws, said the high court.
Lihaylihay also failed to show that his supplied information was the main basis that prompted the government to prosecute the Marcoses and their cronies for possible tax offenses and recovering from them their ill-gotten wealth, said the Court.
In addition, Lihaylihay failed to prove that he was the sole and exclusive source of information leading to the discovery of fraud and violations of tax laws committed by the Marcos family, the Court added.
“While this Court appreciates active citizen participation in addressing the iniquities of public officials, it must underscore the need to comply with procedural and substantive standards set by law for the grant of remedies,” read part of the decision. “The availability of reliefs is not a matter of personal preference, but of order and judicial economy, and due process,” (PNA)
