Two lawyers of the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) went against the position of the government on the P7.34 billion tax case involving oil giant Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. before the Court of Tax Appeals and urged former Presiding Justice Ernesto D. Acosta, a former lawyer of the oil firm, to reverse his decision to inhibit himself from the case.

In an unexpected move, BIR Special Attorneys Felix Paul R. Velasco III and Jason C. Torres filed a Manifestation with Motion for Reconsideration asking Acosta to reconsider his voluntary inhibition.

It can be recalled that last April, the three agencies -- the Bureau of Customs (BoC), the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) and the Office of the Presidential Adviser on Revenue Enhancement (OPARE) --- through the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), called for Acosta’s voluntary inhibition from the Shell case, based on his professional relationship with Shell as the firm’s tax counsel from 1975 to 1981.

Acosta voluntarily inhibited from the case last April 30.

However, the BIR lawyers, in their motion, pleaded that “the honorable Presiding Justice, in an act of sacrifice, inhibited himself where there was no reason to do so.”