Sunday, July 06, 2008 Bigfoot, City officials try to clear air on P44M tax
ACCUSATIONS that the Lapu-Lapu City Government extorted P44 million from a company operating in the city are based on lies, a City Hall official said yesterday.
What the amount represents, Assistant City Attorney Michael Dignos said, are the Bigfoot Group’s tax obligations, which the City assessed in accordance with a memorandum of understanding (MOU) the two parties signed.
“We need that MOU to protect the interest of the City, not the vested interest of anyone at City Hall as insinuated by our critics who have been calling our local officials corrupt,” Dignos said.
Bigfoot’s chairman Michael Gleissner has also denied claims that his company had vowed to expose City Hall’s extortion activities.
Bigfoot was among the companies that Mactan Island anti-graft watch leader Efrain Pelaez Jr. named as those that Mayor Arturo Radaza allegedly fleeced money from.
“I can confirm that at no point in time were we approached by any representative of the City and asked to make illegitimate payments or grant favors of any sort. Any reports in the press at the time that speculated about that were based on hearsay, which we usually do not comment on,” Gleissner said in a letter addressed to Radaza.
A circuitous process in getting permits and occasional intimidation were part of the corrupt system that Pelaez claimed City Hall has employed to extort money from investors.
But Gleissner said that prudence, not coercion, bound him to sign a separate MOU with the City to settle their misunderstanding over his company’s application for Philippine Economic Zone Authority (Peza) accreditation, which requires City Hall’s endorsement.
He also admitted that his company did not know of the court cases between Peza and Lapu-Lapu regarding the City’s taxing power, which was the basis for the City’s refusal to endorse Bigfoot’s accreditation.
He said they knew of the disadvantages his company would face had they been able to persuade City Hall to endorse their accreditation after a meeting with Radaza in December 2005.
Lapu-Lapu won before the Pasay City Regional Trial Court a case that upheld its authority to collect business and other permit fees from non-export oriented businesses located inside the Mactan Economic Zone.
However, it lost the legal battle to collect realty tax from Peza itself. Both cases are now with the Court of Appeals.
Dignos said the signed MOU mandates Bigfoot, even if accredited by Peza, to continue paying realty taxes and secure permits from City Hall.
“We cannot grant the unconditional endorsement because it would be disadvantageous to both Bigfoot and the City,” he said. (AIV)
