ERC chairperson Zenaida Cruz-Ducut
MANILA, Philippines – Internal Revenue Commissioner Kim Henares was mum on whether her office was investigating or conducting a lifestyle check on the chairman of the Energy Regulatory Commission (ERC), who was tagged as a conduit of detained Janet Lim-Napoles.
“Any investigations we have are all confidential. I can’t discuss those things,” Henares told reporters after attending a hearing in the Senate on Tuesday.
“The only time I can talk about the investigation is one, when I file a tax evasion case in the DOJ; 2, if the tax payer files a case against us in the CTA (Court of Tax Appeals) or 3, if the taxpayer is the one who says that we are investigating him or her.”
“This is the only assurance I can give everyone. If there’s anything that needs to be looked at, we will look at it but at this point in time I am not at liberty to divulge anything because those are confidential information. If there’s a need to do something, the BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue) will do it. But I cannot say what we’re doing or what we’re not doing. It’s confidential,” she further said.
ERC chairperson Zenaida Cruz-Ducut had allegedly demanded a 5-percent commission for every pork barrel project she delivered to Napoles, the alleged mastermind of the P10-billion “pork barrel” scam.
Ducut was among those invited by the Senate committee on energy to attend its hearing on Wednesday on the recent power rate hike by the Mania Electric Co.
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