Three persons, including a Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) employee and his wife, were charged criminally before the Department of Justice (DOJ) for allegedly tampering with sales machines to “manipulate and suppress the sales” involving P6.1 billion of several businesses. Named respondents in the complaint were Chiradee N. Base, owner of Basebyte Software Management and Consultancy Service, her husband and BIR employee Aldwin G. Base, and their cousin Jelson B. Vargas. BIR Commissioner Romeo D. Lumagui Jr. led the filing of the complaint on Thursday, May 11, before the DOJ. The respondents were charged with violations of Section 264-B of the National Internal Revenue Code of 1997, as amended, on Possession, Sale or Offer to Sell, Installment, Transfer, Update, Upgrade, Keeping or Maintaining of Sales Suppression Devices. In an interview, Lumagui said that he had already signed the dismissal of Base as BIR employee. “Ang sinampa nating kaso ay yung pag mamanipula ng sales machine (What we filed is a case on manipulation of sales machine), Lumagui said. “Ang amount na minanupala nila ay P6.1 billion ang nawalang benta ng negosyante na kanilang sinerbisyohan (The amount they manipulated is P6.1 billion in sales loss of a business owner whom they provided services),” he said. He said that Aldwin himself installed software in the machine used to manipulate the records of the sales of the business involved. “Ngayon ang nakita natin apat pa lang yan ano. Ngayon hinahalungkay din natin kung sino sino pa ang binigyan nila ng ganito. Pero ang nakita natin sa apat na ito ay P6.1 billion agad ang nakita nating nawalang benta at yung dinaya nilang benta ng negosyante (So far we have seen four companies that were provided with the sales machines. We are now looking at other companies that were given these machines. From what we saw from the four is that P6.1 billion in earnings in lost sales that was cheated from the business owners),” Lumagui said. He said the fraud was discovered following the audit conducted by the BIR on these businesses which showed discrepancies in the receipts and the drop in sales.