Tax credit cases take too long–dementia hits accused

Sandiganbayan building facade. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Former Finance Undersecretary Antonio Belicena has been declared “incompetent to stand the rigors of a court trial” on some 550 charges in connection with the P5.3 billion Tax Credit Certificate (TCC)  scam due to dementia, a mental disorder usually associated with old age.

The cases have been in the legal mill for the past 15 years.

A four-page report signed by a team of five doctors from the National Center for Mental Health (NCMH) said that Belicena, now 81, was suffering from dementia, which is characterized by impairments in memory, orientation and judgment.

“Although the patient has demonstrated an appreciation of the charges against him and of the possible consequences of his cases, it is our opinion that his impairments in cognition will render him incapable to testify in court,” said the report of the medical team led by Dr. Edison C. Galindez, chief of the NCMH forensic psychiatry section.

Belicena, who used to head the DOF One-Stop Shop Inter-Agency Tax Credit and Duty Drawback Center (OSS-Center) during the term of President Fidel Ramos, faces multiple suits in connection with the TCC scam from 1995 to 1998. TCCs are government refunds of duties and taxes given to manufacturing companies that produce local goods for export.

The medical report was attached by lawyer Jose Flaminiano, counsel for Belicena, to the motion that he filed on Monday in the Sandiganbayan’s Second Division, seeking to terminate, suspend or archive 47 charges pending in the court.

Belicena’s medical evaluation was ordered by the court’s First Division in 2013 to determine his fitness to stand trial on all the charges.

Flaminiano said there were still 550 cases, including for graft, estafa and falsification of public documents, against his client pending in all five divisions of the antigraft court.

Between P5.3 billion and P6 billion worth of illegal TCCs were issued by the OSS-Center before the scam was uncovered during a 1998 Senate investigation.

Since 1999, over 700 cases have been filed in court in connection with the TCC scam.

The medical team recommended that Belicena be referred to the care of a neuro-psychiatrist with further regular monitoring at the NCMH.

The First Division had already ordered seven of Belicena’s cases archived pending treatment of the defendant subject to revival if and when his condition improved.

But the court proceedings for Belicena’s coaccused will continue, said the Sandiganbayan.

RELATED STORIES

CA upholds dismissal of 4 DOF execs in P250M tax credit scam

13 Finance execs ordered sacked

17 charged in tax credit scam