Saturday, May 10, 2008 Sandiganbayan: Mercado not fit to be state witness
A PRIVATE defendant in the multi-million-peso tax credit scam cases is in deep trouble after the Sandiganbayan ruled that he cannot turn state witness against his co-accused former government officials.
Jam Liner bus company owner Homero Mercado was earlier granted immunity by the Office of the Ombudsman in exchange for his testimony against his fellow defendants, but the anti-graft court's Fourth Division ruled that he is not qualified as state witness after all.
In a resolution penned by Associate Justice Jose Hernandez, the court said Mercado does not deserve to be excused from two counts of graft and two counts of falsification of public documents after he failed to offer anything vital to the government case.
The court pointed out that based on the prosecution's submission, Mercado was only supposed to identify certain documents, which can be considered "independent evidence" because they are readily available upon request from government offices.
"It cannot be claimed that there is no other direct evidence available for the proper prosecution of the offense committed except his testimony," the court said.
"There are other witnesses presented whose testimonies are vital to the cause of the prosecution," it added.
The court ruling puts Mercado's inclusion in the government's Witness Protection Program (WPP) in peril.
Court records showed that Mercado has been enrolled in the WPP after he was granted immunity from suit by the Ombudsman but was still named as one of the defendants in four charges related to the alleged illegal grant of tax credit certificates (TCCs).
His co-accused included former Finance undersecretary Antonio Belicena, chief of the One-stop Shop Inter-Agency Tax Credit and Duty Drawback Center, which issued the TCCs; Center deputy executive director Uldarico Andutan Jr., local content section OIC Raul de Vera and senior tax specialist Rosanna Diala.
The Ombudsman claimed Jam Liner was able to draw P7.35 million tax credits on January 4, 1996 based on a spurious claim that the transport company acquired 10 bus units at the cost of P40.94 million at P4.094 per unit from domestic manufacturer Philippine Automotive Manufacturing Corp.
Verification later revealed that the buses were only worth P2.35 million each and were actually bought from Diamond Motors Corp., a dealer and not a domestic manufacturer, which should have disqualified the transaction.
A second transaction dated April 11, 1996 involved six bus units purchased at a total value of P24.56 million for which Jam Liner was granted P4.09 million worth of tax credits. (Sunnex)
