Duterte should train guns on corruption at the Register of Deeds, Assessors

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

Rose Buenaflor, niece of Health Secretary Paulyn Jean Buenaflor Rosell-Ubial (like Agriculture Secretary Manny Pinol, both of them are my town mate in M’lang, Cotabato) told me Ubial and her Iloilo based farmer husband Edwin lived in a modest condominium in Pasay.

I staggered upon seeing the photos of Rose and the Ubials inside the condominium, the DOH Secretary lives a modest life while directors of government hospitals in the Philippines splurged with their unexplained wealth like palatial mansions and fleet of expensive cars thanks but no thanks to the up to 30 percent S.O.P or cut they fleeced from contractors and suppliers.

S.O.P or standard operating procedure, a euphemism, concocted by the malefactors in the government and their conspirators in the private sectors are usually done when a contractor or supplier, say of medicine, transact with a government office.

 “Those at the DOH are more corrupt, “I told Harold Barcelona on our daily radio program.

“They are not only Tulisan (Brigand), they are “Three-lisan” (from a play of words Two-lisan to Three-lisan),” Harold declared.

***

Aside from the Bureau of Customs, Land Transportation Office, and the Bureau of Internal Revenue that President Rodrigo Duterte called earlier as most corrupt agencies, he should pounce too at the Register of Deeds and those in the municipal and provincial assessors office.
If these officials choose to shoot it out with the police, the cops know already what to do like the way they did to narc pushers.

A corrupt assessor official could make a sleight of hand tricks for a huge fee to declassify the land the vendor sells to the vendee from commercial to either residential or agricultural.

Declassification means less capital gain tax the seller pays at the BIR at the expense of the government coffer.

Corrupt BIR Examiners and other high officials there play with the Assessors too by not going to the site for an ocular inspection if the land is indeed a residential or agricultural.

Corruption abounds too from the clerks to the big bosses of the Register of Deeds .

***

Here were my experiences there in my more than a decade stint as a media practitioner:

Years ago, BIR Western-Pangasinan, assisted by the Criminal Investigation District Group (CIDG) arrested inflagrante delicto an administrative aide of the Register of Deeds (RD) in the town of Lingayen, after an entrapment operation showed she was involved in issuing fake BIR’s Certificate Authorizing Registration (CAR).

The CAR is issued when the seller or transferor of a real property tax (RPT) pays the BIR through an Estate Tax or Capital Gain Tax and Documentary Tax before the RD gives the new land title to the buyer or recipient.
Top brass of the tax office told me they discovered this anomaly after a lady was found in possession of a fake CAR after a land buyer paid the aide P280, 000 for a CAR in a multi-million pesos of sale of land in Bani, Pangasinan.
The lady was charged with complex crime of estafa with falsification of private document with an imprisonment of up to 22 years, according to the BIR brass.

A regional director of the BIR told me that he suspected that the huge bribes that changed hands at the Register of Deeds happened with the connivance of high officials there like the RD’s head.

You can read the complete story of this alleged corruption by clicking here.

***

Then BIR Commissioner Kim Henares charged in court the head of the Register of Deeds of Dagupan City for conspiring with a land seller and a land buyer. Henares said the seller sold to the buyer an agricultural land in Binalonan, Pangasinan for a modest amount that were all listed on the CAR issued by Revenue District Office-6 of the BIR in Urdaneta City. This transaction was covered by Transfer Certificate of Title (TCT) 89201. But one among the seller and buyer (or their adviser) was probably born a genius. Seller sold again to buyer another 1,282-hectare prime real property (a hotel in the heart of a city) in Dagupan City using the same, son of a gun, TCT numbers by falsifying through replacement, alteration, addition and superimposition of details on the face of the document, among others, of the CAR issued by RDO-6 to look liked it was issued by RDO-4 based in Calasiao, Pangasinan. According to the BIR the “malefactors” paid tax payments only of Capital Gains Tax and Documentary Stamp Tax for P6,000 and P1,500 to P206,000 and P31,500, respectively. This deprived the government P51.49 million of revenues inclusive of surcharges and interests. This happens, according to Henares, with the conspiracy of the head of the RD in Dagupan City who should have seen the blatant falsifications on the CAR before she allowed the transfer of title to the buyer. The RD head was charged for permitting the transfer of the said properties in direct violation of Section 58 (E), in relation to Section 269 (e) and (h) of the Tax Code.

You can read the complete story of this shenanigan by clicking here.

***

The then Deputy head of RD-Lingayen was charged by the BIR RDO-5 Alaminos City of violation of Section 258 (E) of the National Internal Revenue Code of 1997, as amended, for allowing the transfer of ownership of the subject parcels of land without a CAR from the BIR certifying that such transfer has been reported and that the Capital Gain Tax (CGT) thereon has been paid. According to the duo, with the alleged connivance of the Deputy Head for the 12 heirs of Gavino Vinluan in Labrador, Pangasinan to have their 358,966 square meters of lands transferred to buyer former mayor Ernesto Acain of Labrador despite the lack of the requisites. As a result the government was deprived of P9.26 million taxes.

You can read the complete story of this shenanigan by clicking here.

(You can read my selected columns at http://mortzortigoza.blogspot.com and articles at Pangasinan News Aro. You can send comments too at totomortz@yahoo.com)