Charges eyed vs Local execs in illicit tobacco trade

File charges against officials of local government units (LGUs) who tolerate illicit cigarette trade in their localities.

This was Secretary Carlos Dominguez III’s order to the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), which the finance chief asked to coordinate with the Department of the Interior and Local Government (DILG) in pursuing cases against erring LGU executives.

In a statement, Dominguez said Interior and Local Government Secretary Eduardo Año already committed to cooperate with the BIR in running after mayors and other officials of LGUs where the country’s biggest tax-collection agency found factories churning out fake cigarettes.

“We should charge them for not doing their job,” Dominguez was quoted by the Department of Finance (DOF) as saying during a recent DOF executive committee meeting.

Dominguez wrote Año in December asking the DILG chief to investigate and file appropriate charges against local officials who issued a barangay permit to a factory that produced illicit cigarettes.

The factory in Bugallon, Pangasinan, had been disguised as a piggery.

A joint BIR and NBI team raided the factory last Nov. 28 and found about P2 billion worth of cigarettes affixed with fake brand labels and unregistered tax stamps.

“The officials/employees who were instrumental in the issuance of the permit and all other accountable persons who failed to exercise the degree of diligence required of them should be investigated and subsequently subjected to appropriate charges,” Dominguez had told Año. —BEN O. DE VERA