By Rey E. Requejo

Fortune Tobacco Corp. has asked the Supreme Court to reverse its Dec. 23, 2008 resolution dismissing the P200- million damage suit the Lucio Tan company filed against former Internal Revenue Commissioner Liwayway Vinzons Chato.

Fortune instead sought to reinstate the court?s Third Division ruling on June 19, 2007 mandating the Marikina City Regional Trial Court to hear the complaint for damages against Chato, now a congressman representing Camarines Norte.

Fortune stressed that the court en banc lost jurisdiction over the case because its Third Division rendered judgment on April 14, 2008 denying with finality Chato?s motion for reconsideration of its June 19, 2007 ruling.

Through its lawyer Estelito Mendoza, Fortune Tobacco argued that the appeal of the former BIR chief to elevate the case to the court en banc should not have been granted because the case has already been decided with finality by the Court?s Third Division.

The Dec. 23, 2008 en banc resolution penned by Associate Justice Antonio Eduardo Nachura granted Chato?s motion for reconsideration of the June 19, 2007 decision; denied Fortune?s opposition to the referral of the case to the en banc; and ordered the dismissal of the civil case filed by Fortune against Chato before the Marikina City RTC on the grounds that the case ?is in the nature of a suit against the state.?

Fortune was seeking damages from Chato for issuing Revenue Memorandum Circular 37-93 which in 1993 reclassified Tan?s brands of cigarettes??Champion,? ?Hope,? and ?More??as locally manufactured cigarettes bearing foreign brand subject to the 55-percent ad valorem tax.

Prior to the Chato order, the Fortune cigarette brands were considered local brands subjected to an ad valorem tax at rates ranging from 20 percent to 45 percent.