Ruiz’s career change
FORMER Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) 7 Chief Yogi Filemon Ruiz’s career change is interesting. His former PDEA superior, Isidro Lapeña, is bringing him to his new posting as commissioner of the beleaguered Bureau of Customs BOC).
Ruiz will be chief of the BOC’s enforcement and security service. I would have wanted to say the post is sensitive, but considering the corruption in the Bureau, every position there has become sensitive.
My impression of Ruiz is actually shaped only by media reports on PDEA 7 activities and reporters’ interviews on him.
That is obviously far from being rounded. It is rare that the public image of a police officer, or any government official for that matter, is the objective one. There are far too many workings behind the scenes that we need to see to fully know Ruiz’s true traits.
But in a little more than a year with him as PDEA chief, my impression of the man is that of being a straight arrow. We haven’t heard reports of abuses committed by him even as he showed a certain level of aggressiveness in the manner he waged the war against illegal drugs in the region. He seems to be one of the police officials who have refused to be drawn by the open invitation to commit abuses in battling the illegal drug trade. The Philippine National Police (PNP), after all, is not the monolithic organization some people believe.
Its officials and the rank-and-file do not think or act the same way. When the killings of suspected drug pushers and users escalated in Bulacan, Manila City and the Camanava areas recently, the police in Cebu and even the region generally refused to be sucked into the same trap. That showed they still respect due process despite their aggressive stance. But can Ruiz remain a straight arrow at the BOC? We have seen in the recent brouhaha over the P6.4 billion shabu shipment that passed our port and in the subsequent congressional probe of it the magnitude of the temptation (considering the money involved) and how sinister are the forces lurking in and around the bureau.
That even former military officials who once rebelled in the pursuit of their ideals failed there illustrates the degree of difficulty Ruiz is facing.
The BOC can be the country’s version of the mythical King Augeas’s stables that so stank a Hercules was needed to clean these up. Can Lapeña and, to a certain extent, Ruiz and the other BOC officials be our own version of Hercules? When Hercules cleaned the Augean stables, he thought out of the box, using the water from two rivers to do the trick. That meant the use of intellect more than brawn-plus a good dose of determination.
Many have actually entered the BOC with the promise of cleansing it of corruption, but they either were eaten by the system or quit the post unable to make a dent there.
Being known as honest and incorruptible is obviously not enough. One should also be observant and creative in dealing with the sinister forces lurking within and outside the bureau. Plus one should be patient enough to see whatever reforms that are instituted through. Do Lapeña, Ruiz and the others possess those traits?