… as businessman renews call for use of x-ray at Davao port

DAVAO CITY — The operator of the designated examination area (DEA) here that the Bureau of Customs (BoC) closed down in 2010 has again called on the National Government to reopen the facility and help the agency fight corruption and improve security.

The operator of Aquarius Container Yard, Rodolfo C. Reta, said that the reopening of his company’s DEA will help government flag illegal shipments as well as improve revenue collections.

“The government needs it now as the BoC needs all the help if it wants to fight smuggling,” said Mr. Reta, whose DEA was mentioned when the Senate called on Vice-Mayor Paolo Z. Duterte and lawyer Manases R. Carpio to a hearing last week in relation to a P6.4-billion illegal drugs shipment that passed through Customs in Manila.

In his testimony, Mr. Carpio, one of Mr. Reta’s lawyers and son-in-law of President Rodrigo R. Duterte, told the senators that they met with then BoC commissioner Nicanor E. Faeldon to brief him about the importance of the DEA to the BoC’s operations in Davao.

Mr. Reta said he is “thankful to Atty. Carpio because he has been helping me in bringing my case to the consciousness of the National Government.”

It was in 2015 when Mr. Carpio, husband of Mayor Sara Z. Duterte-Carpio, joined Mr. Reta’s legal team after a “lengthy due diligence” following the closure of the DEA.

Mr. Reta signed a memorandum of agreement (MoA) with the government in 2009, with the BoC then under commissioner Napoleon L. Morales, for the operations of the DEA, which hosts a P250-million x-ray machine and other facilities, for 25 years.

The MoA provides the BoC with the use of the x-ray machine “free of charge,” while Mr. Reta would exclusively handle trucking services inside the DEA.

In February 2010, however, following a controversy over a misdeclared rice shipment that Mr. Reta flagged, then BoC collector Anju Nereo Castigador ordered the closure of the DEA on the ground that the former was not delivering his part of the agreement.

Mr. Reta filed cases against Mr. Castigador and several other BoC officials, who have since been terminated or suspended. Mr. Castigador’s appeal is pending in court.