Zamboanga BoC to reward tipsters

ZAMBOANGA CITY: The local Bureau of Customs (BoC) has intensified its campaign against smuggling in the Zamboanga, Basilan, Sulu and TawiTawi (ZamBaSulTa) area, and is now offering 20 percent of the proceeds of confiscated goods to informants.

City District Collector Segundo Barte Jr. recently said the agency had adopted the proposal “to stop, or at least reduce, rampant smuggling in this southern part of the country.”

Barte told reporters that ordinarily cargoes loaded in wooden vessels carry about P20 to P40 million worth of imported goods, and thus, a tipster might get a reward from the BoC of t least P4 million in cash.

The reward, he said, might be offered to anybody, regardless of his or her standing in the community, “be he or she a government employee, policeman, soldier or ordinary citizen in the locality.”

Barte added that he will personally process the payment of the reward to the informant “whose identity the BoC will keep under wraps for his personal and family security.”

The Customs official observed that the goods smugglers bring to the ZamBaSulTa area from nearby Sabah, Malaysia, include rice, sugar, cigarettes, toiletries and noodles.

In his recent letter to the owners of Aleson and Montenegro shipping lines, Barte said, “Any vessel engaged in transporting rice, sugar and cigarettes without permit from the BoC, Sugar Regulation Authority and National Tobacco Administration may render the owner in bad faith and may lead to the issuance of a warrant of seizure and detention against the vessel.”

He appealed to shipping officers to assist the BOo in strengthening the anti-smuggling drive of Customs Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero initiated in Mindanao in southern Philippines.

ANTONIO P. RIMANDO