The group of Malaysian, Thai and Chinese-Filipino businessmen identified with Wincorp?s Santiago Cua Sr. a.k.a. Cua Sing Huan appears to have stepped up the pressure on the Bureau of Internal Revenue to squeeze a whopping half-a-billion pesos in value-added tax exemptions from a deal that set back the cause of transparency in the corporate sector.

The businessmen are part of the board of directors of the Philippine Racing Club Inc. which engineered what could be the most lopsided property-for-shares swap in local corporate history: the title of the P12-billion Sta. Ana race track for shares in a corporate shell called JTH Davies which the same businessmen own and govern.

  Recall that the lopsided deal has been made more controversial by two factors. First, the main man of the group is one of Asia?s most controversial businessmen: Surin Upatkoon alias Lau Khin Kun who has been under investigation by Bangkok authorities for allegedly illegally fronting for Singapore?s Temasek Holdings for the takeover of Thailand?s biggest business conglomerate, Shin Corp.

Surin sits in the PRCI board on behalf of Malaysia?s gambling consortium, Magnum Holdings Berhad.

Second, the lopsided deal has been opposed by Filipino shareholders led by the Puyat clan who criticized the lack of transparency in the scheme leading to the lopsided deal. Cua belittled Puyat?s Filipino group as a ?noisy minority.?

The lopsided swap would have been consummated were it not for the timely action by another Filipino: Finance Secretary Gary Teves who killed a move by some BIR officials to gift the Cua-Upatkoon team with more than P500 million in VAT exemptions covering the transfer of the ownership of the P12-billion Sta. Ana race track to the corporate shell called JTH Davies.

The exemption is contemptible considering that the government had been diffident to grant the request of senior citizens to exempt their medicine purchases from VAT coverage which would amount to some P300 million.

Secretary Teves? timely intervention unmasked a hideous feature of the Cua-Upatkoon scheme: the transfer was contingent on tax exemption plot?P500 plus million in value added taxes that can build more than two million classrooms for Filipino school children all over the country.

Indications are that the Cua-Upatkoon team is ready to resume its battle against Secretary Teves for that P500-plus million in VAT exemptions.

Already, the Cua-Upatkoon tandem has threatened to haul the BIR to court, pointing out in a recent article that it is ready to go on a major legal battle just to get away with that exemption.

The group had already earlier commissioned a high-powered Makati-based accounting firm which wrote the BIR a sternly worded letter demanding that the agency relent on its position denying the tax exemption bid.

Another indication is announcement of the Cua-Upatkoon combine that is has commissioned the Tax Management Association of the Philippines to be its official mouthpiece in this looming confrontation with Finance Secretary Teves.

Why the TMAP has allowed itself to be dragged into this mess by the Cua-Upatkoon combine has taken the business community by surprise. Let us just hope that by siding with the Malaysian-Thai-Chinese interest in this conflict, the TMAP knows that it will play a key role in the bid to deprive the country more than P500 million in revenues that easily translates into 300 health centers for poor Filipinos nationwide.

The association has been known to champion tax relief causes, but it used to do so for industry-wide concerns.

  This is the first time that the TMAP has been heard to take a stand for just one single business interest. It is unfortunate that the organization has selected to champion the cause of the Cua-Upatkoon team versus the people of the Philippines.

  We are asking around among our friends in the business community whether or not this supposed TMAP defense of the Cua-Upatkoon cause is a unanimous decision by its members. TMAP officers and members should realize that by acting as official apologists of the Cua-Upatkoon team in the confrontation with the Finance Department, they could end up as collateral damage.

At any rate, this is a brilliant strategy by the Cua-Upatkoon group.

By dragging the TMAP into the mess, it is able to pit Filipinos against Filipinos while the Malaysian-Thai-Chinese overlords of the PRCI simply watch from the sideline.

But will Teves blink in the face of this renewed threat by the Cua-Upatkoon team?

We hope not and we don?t think so. In this time when the government needs all the money it can raise to bolster efforts of the government to cushion the impact of the worldwide international crisis, Teves would find it is better not give in to any pressure and give up P500-million tax income.

He was firm when he ordered then-BIR Commissioner Lilian Hefti to reverse the tax exemption ruling and to slap the property transfer with the correct VAT assessment.

  It is unlikely that the noise being made by the TMAP mouthpiece for its client, the Cua-Upatkoon group, would weaken Teves? resolve.