PNP launches hunt for Ligot couple

INQUIRER file photo

MANILA, Philippines – The Philippine National Police said Saturday it launched a hunt for former Armed Forces comptroller Jacinto Ligot and his wife, Erlinda, who were ordered arrested by the Court of Tax Appeals for alleged tax evasion.

Chief Supt. Agrimero Cruz Jr., PNP spokesma, said tracker teams of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group have been deployed to search for the couple, but declined to provide details.

“Yes, we have tracker teams from the CIDG who are to go after these wanted persons,” he said via text message.

But when asked if the PNP knew the Ligots’ whereabouts and if they were still in the country, Cruz said these were “operational data” that he did not have access to.

The CIDG deputy head, Chief Superintendent Benito Estipona, confirmed that CIDG teams from the agency’s National Capital Region office and its Detection and Special Operations Division had been tasked to find the Ligots.

“They are believed to be still in the country,” he said. Asked if the search was concentrated in Metro Manila, Estipona said CIDG units were also looking in the provinces.

In a resolution dated September 28, the tax court’s 2nd division found probable cause for the Ligot couple to be put on trial for not reporting income earned in 2003 and for not paying taxes on that income.

Ligot is the second high-ranking military officer to be charged with tax evasion after Carlos F. Garcia, another former military comptroller whose unexplained wealth prompted a wide-ranging Senate investigation into corruption in the Armed Forces.

For its part, the Armed Forces of the Philippines said it had no information on the whereabouts of the Ligot couple. “General Ligot is already retired and no longer under our jurisdiction,” Colonel Arnulfo Marcelo Burgos, chief of the AFP’s public affairs office, said on Friday.

Asked to comment on the warrants for the arrest of the Ligots, Burgos said: “It’s the rule of law taking its course. It’s part of the due process.”

“The Armed Forces is watching the progress of the case since it is part of the reformation” process, he said, adding the AFP would cooperate with any investigating body to ferret out the truth.