Thursday, February 08, 2007
Probe bureau lodges new rap vs cashier
By Danilo V. Adorador III
THE National Bureau of Investigation in Northern Mindanao is set to file graft charges against a City Hall employee who was earlier charged with malversation for allegedly tampering tax receipts.
NBI Regional Director Virgilio Mendez said a case of estafa through falsification will be filed against Remedios Zamayla, a former City Finance Department personnel, accused of pocketing unspecified amount of taxes through tampered tax receipts.
Zamayla, who held a supervisory rank in the tax collection section, disappeared from public eye after filing a leave of absence in October last year--days before her involvement in the alleged tax scam surfaced.
Mendez said they were only waiting for some important documentary evidence from the City Treasurer's Office, and its final report relative to the case, before filing the charges to Office of the Ombudsman Mindanao. NBI filed the malversation case against her in December last year.
The documents from the City Finance, which purportedly include falsified documents and tampered receipts bearing Zamayla's handwriting and signatures, will corroborate the evidence already gathered by the probe agency, said Mendez.
"We will incorporate the reports, evidentiary documents and the sworn statements of taxpayers who claimed to be victimized by the alleged act into our own findings," he told Sun.Star Cagayan.
NBI believes Zamayla has not yet gone out of the country and Mendez said unconfirmed reports indicate the suspect is still in Misamis Oriental where she maintains a residence in one of its towns.
"We will have her specific and definite location once a warrant of arrest has been issued by a competent court," the NBI official said.
Earlier investigation revealed Zamayla had issued tampered tax receipts to at least 80 business establishments, depriving the government of almost a million pesos in taxes since last year.
The number of tampered tax receipts uncovered and the corresponding taxes lost had continued to rise as the investigation dragged on, probers said, though they were unable to give specific figures.
City Treasurer Lino Daral had earlier said although Zamayla had been stripped of collection duties, she was able to continue collecting taxes by using the accountable forms of five tax collectors.
Accountable forms like the official receipts issued by the City Treasury are non-transferable, putting in hot water five other tax collection personnel after the receipts assigned to them were found used by Zamayla.
The five employees, identified as Delia Poncardas, Jean Gamaylo, Arsenieto G. Manseguiao, Hyrence Garcia, Elvis Reyes, all denied involvement in Zamayla's alleged wrongdoings in their respective written explanations to Daral.
Most of them accused Zamayla, then their immediate superior, of coercing them into giving their accountable forms to her, while others said the accountable forms went to Zamayla's hands without their knowledge.
Mendez said no case has been mulled against the five employees, adding they will wait for recommendations from the City Legal Office.
Zamayla's alleged tampering of receipts, despite being relieved from that duty since June 2005, resulted in a total loss of P980,452.71 in taxes, Daral said, adding the amount could reach "millions" if the suspect had been practicing such irregularity when she was still an accountable officer.
Zamayla has reportedly been employed in said office for nearly 30 years.
The list of tax-paying companies whose duplicate copies of receipts had been discovered to have been tampered include private schools, hotels, funeral homes, construction companies and fastfoods, documents gathered from the investigation showed.
Some of the companies, mostly construction firms who are considered "transient taxpayers," are not from Cagayan de Oro.
One such company belongs to a certain G. Uy Matiao, owner of a construction firm from Dumaguete City, whose P15,375 payment for contractor tax, was made to appear in he duplicate-receipt as only P20, with the name of the taxpayer changed to Ugmad Punjen and the nature of payment to that of a certification fee. The transaction occurred in December 2005.
Records also show that a total of P421,631.26 in paid taxes Zamayla had supposedly collected from July to September last year was made to appear in the duplicate-receipts as only P1,380.00 in all.
For more Philippine news, visit Sun.Star Iloilo. (February 8, 2007 issue)
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