Faeldon gets President’s support to transform BOC
Amore determined Bureau of Customs (BOC) Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon emerged from a meeting with President Duterte Tuesday night where he said the chief executive had ordered him to continue transforming the bureau and stop any form of corruption.
With the President’s backing amid the investigation being conducted by the Senate and House of Representatives on the R6.4-billion shipment of shabu from China that made its way to a Valenzuela City warehouse last May , the embattled commissioner showed up yesterday in a press conference with a revived determination to fight corruption.
Calling requests from government officials to promote employees as a form of corruption, Faeldon finally broke his silence on the issue of such requests.
“They want me to influence the promotion board so that their people here will be promoted. I will tell them right in their face, I will never be able to influence the promotion board. Why? Because that is a form of corruption,” Faeldon said.
“I do not want to do that. I told you I don’t know anything about Bureau of Customs. I only know one thing –to say ‘no’ to anybody who wants to influence me,” he continued.
Faeldon diclosed that he received “many but, in fairness, reasonable” calls from various government officials asking favors to promote someone they know in the bureau.
“I’m appealing to you, your request is a form of corruption and you insist at magagalit pa kayo (you even get mad). Shame on you. Shame on you,” Faeldon said.
Visibly irked by the thought of influence-peddling from people outside the bureau, Faeldon said: “Stop it! This is not your property. This is the country’s Bureau of Customs. This is the Filipino people’s Bureau of Customs. So don’t act as if you own this.”
He said there were calls from officials he refused to name, which had asked him to deploy a certain employee to a certain position.
Sila na lang ang mag-commissioner (They should be the commissioner). I’m the one being blamed for a lousy bureau but they were the ones who put lousy people in this bureau, Faeldon countered.
Faeldon said other calls come from companies asking him to go easy on certain shipments so that the company can avoid paying the proper taxes.
Reacting to earlier reports of lawmakers asking Faeldon to step down, the Customs Commissioner stood firm saying only the President can fire him.
Faeldon said his resignation was not even mentioned during the meeting with the president.
“The President is aware of that but it was not discussed. He only told me to continue serving the country well and to stop corruption,” Faeldon said.