PPA employee relieved over ‘irregular transaction’

The Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) yesterday relieved an employee captured on surveillance cameras allegedly engaging in anomalous transactions.

PPA general manager Jay Daniel Santiago said that the female employee deviated from the prescribed transaction procedures, which led to her relief.

The female employee was relieved from her current position inside the Port of Manila (POM) building pending the result of the ongoing investigation.

“PPA will not tolerate any kind of corruption under its auspices and similarly punish to the full extent of the law its personnel that will be found guilty of any corruption,” he said.

Santiago also directed all PPA employees to strictly adhere to the government ethical standards as it is the only way to prevent similar cases from happening.

“Procedures and guidelines are put in place specifically to prevent this kind of scenarios, that is why I am directing all PPA personnel not to deviate from any of our procedures in order to avoid similar instances from happening again in the future,” Santiago said.

The PPA chief also lauded the Bureau of Customs for its efforts in promoting transparency in the Bureau and for showing the alleged malpractice of its employees.

Santiago also noted that the PPA is also accelerating its efforts in migrating from manual to cashless transactions to prevent such cases of malpractice from happening in the future.

Meanwhile, Asian Terminals Inc., in a statement, said it will not tolerate its employees who are engaging in corrupt practices.

This came after the BOC mistakenly identified ATI as the private company who employed the said female official caught by their closed-circuit television cameras. BOC later on, corrected their statement and said the employee was from PPA. (Argyll Cyrus B. Geducos)