Former Reg. 1 BIR Execs rein Nat’l Office

By Mortz C. Ortigoza

URDANETA CITY – Three former top brass of the Bureau of Internal Revenue in Region 1 have been ensconced at the helm of the tax agency because of their exemplary performances.

According to this city’s RDO-6 Chief Maria Isabel B. Utit former Region-1 Directors Arnel Guballa, Teresita M. Dizon, and former RDO- 6 Chief Beverly Milo are now running the national office as Deputy Commissioner for Operation,  OIC-Assistant Commissioner for Large Taxpayers Service, and Head Revenue Executive Assistant, respectively.
Former Regional Director Marina de Guzman steers the second biggest tax region in the country.

BIR Deputy Commissioner Arnel Guballa and OIC- Assistant Commissioner Tess M. Dizon.

Milo works under Dizon as Head Revenue Executive Assistant at the Office of the Assistant Commissioner, Client Support Service.

“Large Taxpayers Service is a prestigious position. It collects trillion of pesos a year in the country,” Utit said.

The BIR, under Commissioner Caesar R. Dulay, has a tax goal of  P2.039  trillion this year. 

                            

DEPUTY COMMISSIONER ARNEL GUBALLA

Guballa became famous on his stint in Manila as tax cheaters’s buster.

He is the father of the bureau’s lethal weapon Run After Tax Evader (RATE).

At the aged of 45, he was not only the youngest regional director, but had been known to file the most tax evasion cases in the annals of the BIR.

“I was the one who introduced that when I was the chief of the National Investigation Division,” he told this paper.

According to Lee Caday, head of the Taxpayer Assistance Unit, the renovated and world class Revenue District Office-4 in Calasiao, Pangasinan has more spaces to offer to clients and personnel than its old building before, thank to Guballa – a Certified Public Accountant and a lawyer.
He said the prime office of the BIR in Region 1 looks like an airport lounge.

Caday said Guballa’s construction binges started from the multiple covered courts, the eight rooms’ dormitory that includes the director’s living room and other buildings and facilities.
Caday added that the four-storey two annexes elevator powered Document Processing Division was the model DPD edifice in the entire country.

He explained that it is the joint program of former BIR Commissioner Kim Henares and the International Monetary Fund where its creation would expedite the monitoring and evaluation of the BIR of the taxes in the region because of its modern online computers and electronic machines.
The building, inaugurated in 2013, cost the tax agency P30 million.

He said Guballa got the funds for his infrastructure streak primarily from the savings of the regional office.

In 2014, under his leadership of revenue Region 1, the office ranked first out of 19 revenue regions in terms of performance scorecard of the Department of Finance. It ranked first on taxpayer satisfaction and compliance, as well as in improved assistance, compliance and enforcement processes.

  OIC-ASST. COM. FOR LARGE TAXPAYERS 

SERVICE TERESITA M. DIZON

“RD De Guzman and RD Dizon are both dedicated to the service and are themselves real performers. They settle for nothing less than excellence so their subordinates have no choice but to be performers as well,” Utit described her former bosses.

During the 2017 stint of Dizon in the four provinces’ Ilocos Region she advised her RDOs to classify the tax payers based on their incomes.

When asked about her prognosis on the economy of the largest province in Region-1 she said:

“Oo naman it’s growing even doon sa regional GDP (Gross Domestic Product) natin growing naman talaga ang Pangasinan. But siguro we have to classify the (inaudible) taxpayers to pay their taxes based on their incomes”.

OIC Assistant Commissioner Dizon is highly respected by the RDOs in the nine cities regional office because of her firm, aggressive, proactive management style where she insisted those RDOs to hit their tax goals so she can attains her P14.3 billion target last 2017 when she was still the regional director.

“She was strict and knows the nuances how to collect more taxes,” one of the RDO chiefs told this paper.

Dizon was the former Regional Director of Cordillera Region before she was whisked to the top post in BIR Region-1.

She hailed from Pampanga.

“Thanks to our outgoing Regional Director and in-coming Assistant Commissioner of Internal Revenue for your guidance and making this possible for all of us. Indeed we are privileged to have worked with you!" Utit, a CPA-Lawyer, cited Dizon after the former received the award as the top RDO in Region-1 last year.

EXECS - Regional Director Marina De Guzman and Head
 Revenue Assistant Beverly Milo

 

                          HEAD REVENUE EXEC. ASST.  BEVERLY MILO 

Attorney Beverly S. Milo, a professor of the School of Law at the Virgen Milagrosa University Foundation (VMUF) in San Carlos City, Pangasinan was recently appointed Director II (Head Revenue Executive Assistant at the Office of the Assistant Commissioner, Client Support Service) of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) National Office in Quezon City. Before her new appointment, she was Chief Revenue Officer IV, CORE Expert Group of the Project Management and Implementation Service in Quezon City.

When she was the RDO-6 Chief of Eastern Pangasinan, CPA-Lawyer Milo waged a battle against fixers in and out her office that victimized unwary taxpayers.
She even published a paid newspaper advertisement warning the public not to transact with Perla Mondina – a suspended staff of One Time Transaction (ONETT) who gone Absent Without Leave (AWOL).

 Milo said that RDOs were not liable incase taxpayers transact business with unauthorized BIR personnel, fixer, and other unscrupulous persons hanging in and out of the tax office.

“This applies also to other current employees unauthorized to receive and process documents of taxpayers. All transactions must be handled either by the ONETT officer or the officer of the day whichever is applicable. Transactions made outside of the BIR premises are considered as unofficial,” she stressed.

              QUEZON CITY REGIONAL DIRECTOR MARINA DE GUZMAN

Many RDO chiefs and brass that were under the tutelage of De Guzman cited her intelligent guidance as a reason why they became effective on their designations.

 De Guzman told this paper before that the lack of enforcers as one of the reasons why some revenue district offices in the region did not hit or exceed their tax collection in the first semester of last year.

“Siguro, first and foremost kulang ng tao that’s why when I was there we were working on 45% capacity. The RDOs there have lots of taxpayers but they could not tap because of lack of personnel”.

She said however that businesses in Region 1 are already there waiting for the tax officials to bill them.

When she was the boss of BIR Region 1 in 2016 she collected P11.8 billion while her successor Teresita Dizon was given a tax goal of P14 billion last 2017.

De Guzman said that one of the hard working RDO chiefs in Region 1 is Central Pangasinan RDO-4 Chief Merlyn Vicente.

“She came to the office earlier and left late after office hour,” she said of the Calasiao, Pangasinan based executive.

De Guzman was mandated by the government to collect P144 billion in 2017 in the entire Quezon City.

“My annual (goal) in Region-1 was only a tax target of one of my revenue district offices here,” she cited.

Quezon City is second to Makati City in the most taxes collected in the country.

If based on the customary 20 percent additional tax goal to the previous year collection, Quezon City should be collecting P173 billion this year.

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