(Customs officials) earn so much from corruption that their salaries are more like an allowance. — President Rodrigo Roa Duterte
BASED on public perception, the Bureau of Customs (BoC) until now has been viewed as the most corrupt agency in government—with a recent survey saying 74 percent of respondents considering the extent of corruption in the bureau to be large (24 per cent perceived the level to be small and 1 per cent had no opinion).
And corruption in the Bureau of Customs is not limited to smuggling. According to a source, there are numerous occasions wherein records show that many import entries, duties and taxes on the shipments of some businessmen-importers were much lower than those levied on small players for similar imports.
A glaring example of such is the case of a party-list lawmaker whose shipment was often charged with lower tariff and this was done because the Office of the Commissioner (OCom) and district collectors agreed to lower duties for fear of being investigated by Congress, where the solon sits as member of the committees on appropriation and on ways and means.
But time and again, the Bureau of Customs has announced that it has intensified its anti-corruption campaign and under the leadership of commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero, 516 show-cause orders had been issued from January to September 2021, which led to the dismissal, suspension, relief and reshuffling of errant Customs personnel.
More than this, the BoC’s Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service (CIIS) conducted 126 personnel investigations in the same period and these initiatives had resulted in the filing of 31 administrative cases before the BoC-Legal Service.
In addition, the BoC was also able to transmit 57 cases to the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and one case to the Ombudsman.
During the period, three BoC employees were dismissed, 12 were suspended, six were reprimanded and another six were relieved and 543 were reshuffled or transferred to various offices and ports due to irregular and unlawful activities. Other accomplishments achieved under the same campaign include the Performance Governance System (PGS) trailblazer award for the BoC, the ISO certification of six BoC offices and ports; the culmination of the Bureau’s Integrity Programme Diagnostic with the World Customs Organization (WCO); and the creation of the Anti-Corruption Coordinating Committee and BoC-Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission (BoC-PACC) command group.
Truly significant achievements—yet this somehow leads us to another issue that has been blocked out from the public’s eyes and the media which concern about a certain list of BoC personnel who are allegedly being currently investigated by the office of the Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC), erstwhile headed by former Manila councilman Greco Antonius Belgica, who is the son of my good friend and presidential adviser for religious affairs (Bishop) Grepor ‘Butch’ Belgica.
In a memorandum, the list tagging 14 ranking Bureau of Customs (BOC) officials in corruption has now been renamed as a ‘death list’ after two individuals included in the document were allegedly targeted by assassins. BoC senior appraiser Eudes Nerpio, who was allegedly number two in the memorandum, was shot dead last January 7 by an unidentified gunman in Binondo, Manila.
His female companion was unharmed. Atty. Melvin Tan, another senior Customs official, survived an assassination attempt before Christmas last year.
He was surprisingly listed on top of the list despite him being known as vocally and aggressively against corruption in the bureau.
But there was a news blackout on the assassination attempt on Tan.
Still, BoC insiders hinted that the bureau’s legal officer and technical assistant, was targeted because of a ‘failed transaction’ which was foiled by Commissioner Guerrero himself, who was apparently blind about the deal, hence its failure.
The names in the ‘death list’ are reportedly drawn from a letter endorsed in November by the PACC to the Office of the Commissioner on the suspicion they were involved in corrupt activities. Other names on the list include another lawyer, seven Customs operations officers, an intelligence agent, two Customs operations officer, a special agent and a security guard.
Those included in the ‘death list’ now fear for their lives.
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