PCGG goes after firm tied to Tan

The Presidential Commission on Good Government (PCGG) has asked the Sandiganbayan to allow it to include the Philip Morris Fortune Tobacco Corp. (PMFTC) and its officials as defendants in the ongoing forfeiture case against tycoon Lucio Tan.

Tan’s Fortune Tobacco Co. (FTC), which is part of the forfeiture case, earlier merged with Philip Morris to form PMFTC.

The PCGG, represented by the Office of the Solicitor General, said the transfer of Fortune Tobacco’s assets to Philip Morris to form the new corporation was aimed at skirting the forfeiture case.

“Such transfer was attended with fraud and constitutes an attempt to effectively remove defendant FTC’s and NTRC’s [Northern Tobacco Redrying Co. Inc.] assets and place them beyond the plaintiff’s and the honorable court’s reach,” it said.

The PMFTC officials the PCGG also sought to implead are Lucio Tan Jr., Michael Tan, Christopher Nelson, Douglas Werth, Mitchell Gault, Raymond Miranda, Varinia Elero, Vincent Nguyen, Domingo Chua, Juanita Tan Lee, Peter Ong, Shirley Santillan, Myra Vida Jamora and Henry Sitosta.

The PCGG filed the forfeiture case against Tan in 1987, charging that his companies were part of the ill-gotten wealth of Marcos and his family.