President Ferdinand 'Bongbong' Marcos Jr. is willing to reopen the case on his family's alleged unpaid estate taxes worth over PHP 23 billion in order for it to be finally resolved.
"Open the case and let us argue with it. So that all of the things that we should have been able to say in 1987, ’88, ’89 that we were not able to say," Marcos said in an interview with TV host Toni Gonzaga aired on Tuesday.
"We're actually encouraging that this finally be resolved because I don't want to make a legal opinion for which I am not qualified. But rather to say that we were never allowed to argue because when this case came out we were all in the United States. So when it was the time for us to answer, we had no chance to answer because we were nakakulong (detained) in Air Force Base in Hawaii," he added.
According to the President, they did not have the chance to answer the case since they were in the United States during that time.
"Iisa-isahin namin talaga ‘yung sinasabi nilang property kasi hindi maliwanag ang pag-aari ng mga property na sinasabi amin. Sinasabi namin hindi amin ‘yan. Huwag niyo kami tina-tax diyan," he continued.
Marcos and his mother, former first lady Imelda Marcos, are co-administrators of the estate left by the Marcos patriarch who died in Hawaii on Sept. 29, 1989.
In 1991, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) issued a deficiency estate tax assessment that reached over P20 billion at that time. In October of that same year, the younger Marcos returned to the Philippines.
However, Marcos filed a petition in the Court of Appeals (CA) in 1993 but did not agree with the decision that came out in 1994. He then appealed the case to the Supreme Court in 1995 but the High Court dismissed it in 1997.
The SC’s decision became final and executory in 1999.
