Lawmaker seeks lifestyle check at customs

A lawmaker has asked the Aquino administration to conduct a lifestyle check on all employees of the Bureau of Customs (BOC).

Cagayan Representative Jack Enrile made the suggestion after BOC clerk Paulino Elevado resigned on February 21, a month after he fired his gun at and beat up a 20-year-old student who had bumped his Porsche Carrera.

Enrile believes there could be other employees at the BOC who are living beyond their government incomes like Elevado.

“Like many ordinary and hardworking Filipinos, I find the arrogance of the customs clerk who drives a Porsche and shoots another motorist over a traffic altercation very appalling. I am also quite intrigued by  how this guy can afford his lifestyle given the level of salary he is supposed to be receiving at the BOC,” Enrile said.

He said the BOC should not stop at going after Elevado but should make a serious effort to shed its image as a beehive of corruption by conducting a mandatory lifestyle check on all employees.

“It would be wise for the President to order a lifestyle check on all customs employees, starting with their senior officials, to send a message that nobody is exempt from the administration’s ‘daang matuwid’ campaign,” he said. Gil C. Cabacungan