Justice Secretary Vitaliano Aguirre II (File photo by MARIANNE BERMUDEZ / Philippine Daily Inquirer)
Justice Secretary Vitaliano Agurre II on Monday dared Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña to just file a case against him if he really did something wrong instead of making threats in public.
Osmeña earlier threatened to file graft and disbarment cases against Aguirre for his supposed interference in the tax evasion charges filed by the Cebu City government against SM Prime Holdings and BDO Unibank.
The mayor said Aguirre acted as the lawyer of the two establishments following his order to transfer the complaint filed by the city government to the Department of Justice (DOJ) in Manila.
The city government filed a case against BDO branch and its officers for alleged underdeclaration of gross annual revenue and falsification of gross sales in its business permit application for 2016.
He also filed a separate complaint against four SM officials in November 2016 over the alleged understatement of the size of one mall branch in Cebu City to cut tax obligations.
But Aguirre called Osmeña’s allegation baseless.
“He should just file it instead of threatening me publicly,” he told reporters.
Aguirre explained that there was nothing irregular or anomalous in his order for transfer of the cases against SM and BDO executives from the Cebu City Prosecutor’s Office.
“The conflict between BDO and Mayor Osmeña there in Cebu is very deep, so the respondents requested that the case be transfered because they could hardly expect fairness since the people there will favor the mayor,” he recalled.
“So what I did was to transfer the case here and assigned it to one of our prosecutors. But when I did that, it was within my power to transfer cases, which I always exercise,” Aguirre pointed out. /atm