Sacked for doing their job

For recommending the filing of criminal charges against Pilipinas Shell Petroleum Corp. (Shell) to their boss, three customs officials at the Port of Batangas have been sacked.

District Collector Juan N. Tan; Alexander Atienza, chief of the port’s customs intelligence and investigation service; and Ernesto D. Urbano, deputy collector for assessment, were all replaced.

Tan and Urbano have been reassigned to the Office of the Commissioner, while Atienza was transferred to Limay, Bataan, a less important port.

Tan, Urbano and Atienza earlier recommended to Customs Commissioner Lito Alvarez that a case for smuggling be filed against Shell for allegedly misdeclaring its shipments worth P1.578 billion.

Shell’s shipments arrived at the Batangas port from July 2010 up to May 2011.

Alvarez reportedly ignored the recommendation.

Now Tan is in hot water for the loss of 2,000 containers that were supposed to have been transhipped to the Batangas port from Manila.

Tan has cried harassment since he says only 309 containers transhipped from the Port of Manila and the Manila International Container Port (MICP) arrived in Batangas.

The 2,000 containers listed as missing never reached Batangas, Tan says.

The containers, loaded with general merchandise, might have been diverted elsewhere, or slipped out from the two ports.

Tan is calling for an investigation by an “outside” agency like the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), not by the Bureau of Customs, to ferret out the truth.

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If Tan is telling the truth that the 2,000 missing containers never reached the Batangas port, then officials at the Port of Manila and the MICP should be held accountable.
This is the first time, according to my customs sources, shipments were stolen or diverted before they could reach their intended destination, in this case, the Batangas port.

Alvarez should own up to the responsibility for the missing shipments, instead of blaming his subordinates.

The buck stops at the door of the customs commissioner.

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By the way, smuggling is rampant in the ports of Cebu, Davao and Cagayan de Oro, according to my spies.

The collectors in those ports are untouchable because they reportedly have connections beyond Alvarez.

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If the Senate or the House of Representatives is planning to investigate irregularities at the National Police Commission (Napolcom) and the Philippine National Police (PNP), it should invite former Napolcom Commissioner Mar General as a resource person.

General was sacked by then President Arroyo for questioning the land-swap deal between the Napolcom and Megaworld on the former’s multibillion-peso estate in Fort Bonifacio with the latter’s cheaper property in San Juan City and Quezon City.

General also questioned the allegedly unaudited multimillion-peso “special funds” from the Napolcom-Bases Conversion Development Authority housing project in Diego Silang, Taguig City; the substandard bullet vests issued to the PNP; the P3.4–million Napolcom office uniforms; and the reported faking of the results of exams for police applicants in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao.

The former maverick Napolcom commissioner has written to President Noy about the irregularities, but was allegedly ignored.