Court allows Makati to use Smart docs as evidence in P3.2-B tax case

The Court of Tax Appeals (CTA) has upheld a lower court ruling which allowed Makati City to secure documents from Smart Communications, Inc. as possible evidence in the P3.2 billion of tax liability case filed by the City against the telco.

The CTA, in a 13-page ruling dated February 5, junked Smart’s petition for certiorari against Acting Presiding Judge Augusto Jose Area of the Makati City Regional Trial Court (RTC) Branch 133 and Officer-in-Charge City Treasurer Jesusa Cuneta of Makati City—a petition which also sought to annul the Makati City RTC’s June 2019 decision granting Makati City’s motion for production or inspection of Smart's documents as well as the August 2019 Makati City RTC’s ruling denying Smart’s appeal on the said ruling.

The Tax Court noted that the Makati City RTC did not commit a grave abuse of discretion when it granted Makati City’s Motion for Production or Inspection of Documents in its June and August 2019 Resolutions because such pleadings were in accordance with the Rules of Court concerning modes of discovery.

“This Court finds no grave abuse of discretion on the part of the public respondent and/or the RTC. A perusal of the first assailed resolution reveals that public respondent did not grant the motion for production outright. The RTC's order came with a proviso which subjected the grant of therein respondents' motion to the latter's capacity to prove the relevancy of the documents sought for production,” the CTA said.

“As to whether these documents are indeed relevant and material to the disposition of petitioner's case is one best determined in the course of trial,” the CTA added.

Likewise, the CTA said that it was premature for Smart to ask the RTC to exclude the documents that Makati City secured via its valid motion because these documents had yet to be presented as evidence.

As such, Smart’s petition for certiorari was an attempt to block the evidence that might arise from such documents.

“It could then not be expected that the RTC could immediately deny their presentation therein. After all, a party who calls for the production of a document and inspects the same is not obliged to offer it as evidence. To the Court's mind, petitioner's instant petition is a disguised objection to the admissibility of the subject documents,” the CTA said.

“However, objections to the admissibility of evidence must be raised at the proper place and time. Wherefore, the foregoing considered, petitioner's Petition for Certiorari is denied for lack of merit. Accordingly, the Resolutions on 28 June 2019 and on 07 August 2019 issued by Branch 133 of the Regional Trial Court of Makati City are hereby affirmed,” the CTA added. — DVM, GMA News