NBI ordered to join hunt for Ligots

MANILA, Philippines – Justice Secretary Leila de Lima has ordered the National Bureau of Investigation on Saturday to join the hunt for a former comptroller of the Armed Forces of the Philippines and his wife after the Court of Tax Appeals ordered their arrest for tax evasion.

De Lima said she ordered the NBI to arrest the former AFP comptroller Jacinto Ligot and his wife, Erlinda, after Bureau of Immigration records showed that they had not left the country.

“Per BI database, the spouses Jacinto and Erlinda Ligot are in the country. [I have] instructed the NBI to locate them and effect their arrest,” De Lima said.

The Philippine National Police announced Saturday it has fielded teams to look for the Ligots.

The tax court’s Second Division earlier ordered the couple’s arrest after it found probable cause for them to be tried for failing to report their income in 2003 and not paying their taxes.

Lawyer Maria Antonette Bucasa-Mangrobang, BI spokesperson, said their computer section’s data showed that the last time Jacinto Ligot left the country by plane was on April 2, 2000 and that he returned on April 4 that same year.

“This is his last arrival and we do not have any departure record after that,” Mangrobang said.

She added that there were two entries for “Erlinda Ligot” in the BI database. One was for “Erlinda dela Cruz Ligot” who left the country on Aug. 2, 2005 and returned on August 13 that same year. The other – Erlinda Ligot y Yambao – left on June 26, 2010 and returned on June 30, 2010.

She returned with an allowed departure order, “so I suppose this is Mrs. Ligot,” Mangrobang said. “She arrived on June 30, 2010. After that no record that she departed.”

“As for all international airports this is the record as of this time… they are in the country,” she added.

Mangrobang said, however, her agency was still checking records from the country’s seaports which are “manually entered” into the BI database and this takes “one to two weeks.”