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By Ric R. Puod
and Annie Ruth Sabangan, Senior Reporters
(First of a 4-part series)
THOUGH many of his townmates in Pola, Oriental
Mindoro, remember Sen. Manuel “Noli” de Castro with fondness and
admiration, his critics scoff at him as nothing more than a bundle
of discrepancies.
As the May 10 election draws nearer, allegations
have been made more stridently in the media against the man the
opinion surveys consistently say is most likely to win the
vice-presidential race.
Worse than what his enemies have said in the
media are rumors and gossip (not only about his personal and family
life) but about his allegedly vile doings. Among the reports:
• His being allegedly the protector of an
illegal gambling lord whose operations cover the larger part of the
industry in Central Luzon and Southern Tagalog.
• His allegedly having a team of Bureau of
Customs men who, under his direction, can protect and advance the
success of smugglers who bring in complete knockdown vehicles.
• His allegedly owning large tracts of land
and businesses, amassed through extortion, and maintaining these as
pleasurable and profitable undertakings without first obtaining
proper permits and without paying proper license fees and taxes.
• His alleged violation of environmental laws
because he has his personal zoo of pets, mostly endangered animals.
• His being an extortionist who has enriched
himself using his widely watched and respected ABS-CBN Magandang
Gabi, Bayan TV news and feature magazine program.
Many of these allegations, on deep investigation
as these two reporters have done, have proved to be mostly baseless
and possibly politically motivated gossip floated to keep de Castro
from winning the vice-presidency and halting his anticipated advance
to the presidency in 2010.
Data found by The Manila Times do show, however,
that he has some explaining to do about at least three things.
What did he really spend in his 2001 senatorial
campaign? How were these expenses paid for?
Why did he use his wife’s Tax Identification
Number (TIN) in both his 2001 and 2002 Statement of Assets and
Liabilities (SAL)? He seems to have broken the law doing this.
Has he been keeping pets in violation of
environmental rules? Or is he a genuine environmentalist whom this
country’s greens must hold in admiration?
The Times sought in vain for an interview with
de Castro about these questions for days on end. His lawyer tried to
persuade The Times to junk this special report project altogether.
Assets and liabilities
R.A. 6713 (Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards
for Public Officials and Employees) requires all government
officials and employees to disclose, under oath, their assets,
liabilities and net worth and their business interests, their
financial connections and their relatives, if any, in government
service.
If his 2001 and 2002 SALs are correct, de Castro
was almost left with nothing after the 2001 election. His 2001 and
2002 SALs show that he must be as poor as or even poorer than the
citizens from the lowest-income brackets who were among the 16
million Filipinos who voted him senator.
He declared total assets worth P29,843,960 in
2001. His total liabilities amounted to P5,960,750, leaving him a
net worth of P23,843,960. He declared having spent more than P32.4
million to get elected to a Senate seat and received P3,932,066.60
in campaign contributions.
These figures make one wonder how much money he
had in 2000 (when, not being in government, he was not required to
file a SAL). How much in 2000 did he pay with his own money to buy
in advance—for his use in the 2001 campaign—the materials, radio
and TV airtime, airplane tickets and the like.
If he did not pay for these in advance, who
picked up the tab? If someone else did, shouldn’t de Castro have
declared those expenses as donations? In which case, was his
declaration that he received contributions totaling only
P3,932,066.60 untruthful?
These questions come up because in his 2002 SAL,
his assets remained untouched. He should have sold some of his
assets to be able to raise P29,491,192.61 for those 2001 election
expenses not covered by P3,932,066.60 contributions he had received.
Noli de Castro apologists say this seeming
discrepancy is a nonbrainer. Friends have paid for some of those
election expenses—after the election period! Therefore, he
is not obliged to report those as contributions or donations to
anybody anymore. Some of these expenses have remained unpaid—and
he has been ducking bill collectors like most of our poorer
countrymen, his defenders also say. So what’s so horribly wrong
with that?
His subsequent SAL for 2002 shows that his
wealth has not increased, but his liabilities have by about P2
million. Maybe, this is because some of the unpaid election expenses
have become formal IOUs de Castro was forced to sign. He became P2
million poorer in 2002. His net worth as revealed in his 2002 SAL,
dropped to only P21,861,463. His assets are the same as before,
including bank savings of P2.4 million, his Tierra Pura home in
Quezon City, six other real-estate property holdings, five luxury
cars, jewelry and his businesses.
Wrong TIN a false declaration?
The documents may also indicate
wrongdoing—that could be interpreted as fraud, a BIR lawyer
says—by this popular radio and TV broadcaster with a reputation
for being an anticrime and anticorruption crusader.
Senator de Castro in his two SALs used the
Taxpayer Identification Number—TIN (102-873-357)—of his wife.
Bureau of Internal Revenue sources have
confirmed to The Times that TIN 102-873-357, indeed, belongs to Mrs.
Arlene Fatima Sinsuat de Castro.
The senator, these sources also confirm, has his
own, proper TIN. It is TIN 200-831-680, issued to him only on April
17, 1998.
Many Filipinos are given their TINs when they
get their first jobs. How is it that de Castro, who has been a
professional media man and a businessman for decades, got his TIN
only in 1998?
“You can’t use the TIN of your spouse to
file your income-tax returns,” a BIR lawyer who requested
anonymity told The Times. “That’s considered fraud under the
prevailing tax jurisprudence.” In a married couple’s joint
income-tax return, said the BIR lawyer, both spouses’ TINs must
appear in the return. Never is the wife’s TIN to be filed alone.
He said this infraction falls under Section 255
of the National Internal Revenue Code, which deals, among others,
with the failure to supply correct and accurate information to the
BIR.
The offender could be fined not less than
P10,000 and imprisoned for not less than one year.
Rex Oribiana, assistant chief of the Senate
accounting division, told The Times that the TIN used by de Castro
in his SALs may be the same TIN he has submitted to the Senate
office.
Could de Castro be using two TINs in transacting
with the BIR?
‘Something stinks’
De Castro’s use of his wife’s TIN in his two
SALs casts doubts on his credibility as an authentic boses ng masa
(voice of the masses), which he claims to be, Rodolfo Jimenez, a
trial lawyer who figured in the historic investigation of Benigno
Aquino’s assassination in 1981, told The Times. “It’s
questionable. It’s worth looking into. It also opens to question
his ethical qualification for the vice-presidency. It seems to me
that something stinks in that TIN.”
Jimenez thinks de Castro may have to explain why
he did not affix his own TIN in his two consecutive SALs. He asked,
“Was there an attempt to lie or hide something? If you lie about
one thing, you may also be lying about other things.”
This now raises questions whether de Castro’s
income-tax returns as a senator has been unwittingly credited to his
wife’s TIN.
But as far as the Integrated Tax System is
concerned, BIR sources told The Times, neither filing of an
income-tax return nor payment of income tax has been reflected on de
Castro’s TIN since 2001. The same is true with his wife’s TIN,
under which the latest payment for income tax made was in 1997.
De Castro’s wife was vice president for
current affairs of the ABS-CBN TV network until her
“resignation” from the network in January. The Times’ inquiry
about that resignation has been left unanswered. So, whether she has
really resigned or not is not quite clear.
ABS-CBN must have been filing reports about her
withholding tax. But The Times could not get hold of these reports
or certificates.
If ABS-CBN has not filed these reports (Form
W-2316 for regular employees, Form W-2307 for persons rendering
consultancy and other services as professionals), then it is guilty
of an infraction against the Tax Code as well.
The Senate accounting division said it is
up-to-date in its documentary and other transactions with the BIR
concerning all the senators’ tax obligations. But an official of
that Senate division told The Times it can’t be held responsible
if a senator, like Noli de Castro has done, gives it the wrong TIN.
Unless the BIR audits de Castro’s income-tax
returns as a senator, there is no way it can possibly spot and
correct any errors. “There are so many taxpayers with problems and
errors. De Castro may not be the only one,” the BIR lawyer said.
He believes that records of payments of the income tax and
income-tax returns filed could be accessed from BIR districts,
especially now that these are computerized.
But The Times’ efforts to follow the BIR
lawyer’s cue and access the records failed.
(Tomorrow: Part 2: “ABS-CBN baby’s
businesses and advocacies.”)
Part 2 |Part
3 |Conclusion |
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