Courts protecting rice smugglers–Customs chief
WHILE admitting that there are “flaws in Bureau of Customs (BOC) processes,” the new head of the Department of Finance-attached agency has assailed some local courts for seemingly protecting suspected rice smugglers.
Customs Commissioner John Phillip Sevilla told the INQUIRER some traders, whose rice shipments had been held by the BOC for lack of import permits, “have been running to the courts, which, in turn, have been upholding them by issuing injunctions against the bureau.”
Sevilla accused the courts of tolerating or coddling ( kinukunsinte) violators of customs regulations. “I’m really worried about that,” he said in a recent interview.
“Our intelligence (division) personnel are risking their lives to get information that will allow us to seize (shipments) and then the courts are going to issue injunctions just like that,” the BOC head said.
“It’s bulls--t,” he exclaimed, saying that one of the courts he was referring to was “in Davao.”
According to Sevilla, he had “heard there’s another court injunction to be issued shortly” against the bureau. “Are we joking here?” he said. “Once the courts start giving protection to rice traders who have been caught smuggling, ibang usapan na ’yan (that’s a different story),” he said. “We intend to challenge these court rulings very vigorously,” he added.
Sevilla’s outburst came shortly after Justice Secretary Leila de Lima lamented that her department hit a blank wall in its investigations into alleged rice smuggling because no one in the Bureau of Customs or the suspected illicit brokers would cooperate and give testimony.
De Lima said the National Bureau of Investigation had found no leads since the Senate recommended 10 months ago that the Department of Justice investigate the rice smuggling syndicate led by a certain “David Tan.”
Former customs officials have told the INQUIRER that up to P6 billion had been given out as payoffs by “David Tan” to customs personnel and brokers over the past years to slip in rice shipments to bogus farmer cooperatives. However, these sources requested anonymity.
De Lima said the NBI opened an investigation but shelved it after the agency failed to establish the identity and whereabouts of Tan and one “Danny Ngo,” another alleged financier of the rice-smuggling operations.
“No one among the members of the alleged cooperatives was willing to cooperate,” De Lima said.
“Not even the search of our files of all persons with the name David Tan provided positive information,” she said, quoting from the NBI investigative report.
She said the NBI had invited representatives from 24 cooperatives in the search for Tan and Ngo but all of them “professed lack of knowledge” about these so-called smuggling kingpins.
In a text message to the INQUIRER, however, De Lima said she would order the NBI to reopen the probe.
One of the challenges facing the new leadership at the BOC is whether or not it can dismantle the network allegedly built by Tan, who is said to operate behind various brokerage firms.
According to INQUIRER sources, “if you want to bring in rice without paying the right taxes, you have to go through him (Tan) because the customs officials deal only with him. They do not entertain any other rice smugglers except Tan.”
The same source added, “After David Tan informs his connections when his shipments are arriving, the smuggling network goes into motion, from those who sign the papers to those who open the exit gates in the ports.”
As early as February this year, senators investigating the existence of a rice smuggling cartel in the country had identified “Tan” as one of the financiers who bankrolled the syndicate of bogus cooperatives and enterprises that cornered a huge chunk of the National Food Authority’s rice importations under the Aquino administration.
Last week, Sen. Ralph Recto said he would ask the Senate ways and means committee to take another look into the rice smuggling issue when Congress resumes session next month. He told the INQUIRER he was “disappointed that apparently no action had been taken on (the Senate committee’s) recommendations to identify and prosecute those involved.”