Tan is no crony, exec says

Retired Lt. Gen. Salvador Mison, president of the Lucio Tan Group of Companies, has taken strong exception to the accusation that the beer and tobacco magnate is a crony of President Estrada.

Mison stressed that Tan has not received favors nor gotten any special treatment from the government.

As a matter of fact, the retired general said, his boss has suffered financially for being wrongly accused as an Estrada crony and the focus of media criticism.

"Mr. Tan has received undeserved media criticisms because of this baseless perception that he is being favored by the government," Mison pointed out.

He added that Tan's detractors should also consider the fact that the businessman belongs to a group of individuals that continuously (since more than three decades) contributes to the welfare of millions of Filipinos.

"Employing directly more than 50,000 people and paying billions in taxes, what more should we expect from Mr. Tan? Have his detractors examined their conscience if they have ever contributed anything to the Filipino nation except to sow confusion, disunity and resentment?" Mison lamented.

The retired vice chief of staff of the Armed Forces said Tan has even sacrificed by clinging on to and saving financially bleeding Philippine Airlines as its collapse could send the country's economy into a tailspin.

"Instead of closing down PAL to cut losses, Tan decided to hold on and invest an additional $200 million following appeals from the government to resume its flights when the airline temporarily shut down in 1998," he said.

In the case of Philippine National Bank (PNB), Mison said Tan was the only private investor who dared invest in the bank despite its being in precarious financial status, racking up a P7.3 billion loss in 1998 alone.

Likewise, the bank has the highest level of non-performing loans in the commercial banking industry with bad accounts representing 29 percent or P34.9 billion of its total loan portfolio as of last year. The bad loan ratio is way above the industry average of 14.6 percent of November 1999.

It was also learned that PNB has some $200 million due European creditors which the bank has to immediately raise so as not be declared in default. "In effect, Tan's investments technically paid up the long overdue loan," he said.

"What government favor did Tan receive from his foray into PNB? Potential losses that could run into billions of pesos?" Mison said.

Instead of vilifying Tan for buying into PNB, he should be credited for saving the bank from collapsing due to heavy losses and bad loans, Mison pointed out.

With regard to Tan's tax case, Mison welcomed Justice Secretary Artemio Tuquero's statement that the Department of Justice would pursue Tan's tax cases in court.

"We are more than confident of our position that Tan was only subjected to harassment (from) the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) during the Ramos administration," he said.

Mison reiterated that the P25 billion tax allegedly due from Tan is "imaginary." The huge portion of the P25 billion was made up of penalties and surcharges, the bases of which have yet to be proven.

Furthermore, there was no assessment for the years 1990 and 1991. The assessment for 1992 is not even final because the request for reconsideration filed by Fortune Tobacco lawyers was never acted by then BIR Commissioner Liwayway Chato, Mison stressed.

He pointed out that by using the distributor's price instead of the registered manufacturers wholesale price as provided by law as basis for assessing ad valorem taxes, seven of Fortune Tobacco's brands were raised from the 20 percent to the 45 percent bracket. "This accounts for the enormous amount of income, value added tax and ad valorem tax deficiencies being charged by the BIR against Fortune Tobacco."