Duterte credits Faeldon with making Mighty pay up

President Rodrigo Duterte on Friday heaped praises anew on former Customs chief Nicanor Faeldon saying the former mutineer was responsible for bringing cigarette firm Mighty Corp. to justice for cheating taxes and adding P40 billion to the government’s coffers as a result.

Faeldon had been cited by Sen. Panfilo Lacson in a privilege speech as among Customs officials who were in the payola of smugglers.

But the President said that had Faeldon been corrupt, he would have kept to himself the operations he planned against Mighty, which the President said was “untouchable before.”

He said Faeldon whispered to him about Mighty’s warehouses that kept fake cigarette tax stamps.

Faeldon resisted the temptation of entering into an under-the-table deal with Mighty in which “he could have earned more money than his third-generation children can ever spend,” the President said in a speech in Davao City on Friday.

Faeldon resigned as Customs chief following the smuggling of at least P10 billion worth of “shabu” that made it past the Customs bureau and ended up in a Valenzuela City warehouse. —Allan Nawal