Customs Commissioner Alberto Lina and two other officials of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) are facing plunder and graft cases in the Office of the Ombudsman for allegedly rescinding a P650-million contract for a modern computerized processing system in the BOC in favor of a private firm owned by Lina.
Citing “criminal conflict of interest,” Annabelle Margaroli, president of the Omniprime Marketing Inc., brought on Thursday, criminal charges against Lina, former Customs Commissioner Guillermo Parayno Jr. and former Deputy Commissioner Primo Aguas for their supposed role in voiding the project, which the BOC awarded to Omniprime and its partner Intrasoft International Inc. on April 13.
Accompanied by lawyer Harry Roque, Margaroli said Lina’s arbitrariness in annulling the contract would only benefit E-Konek Pilipinas, one of the six companies owned by the controversial customs chief, which directly transact business with the BOC.
She said the new integrated customs processing system, which was intended to create a “national single window,” was supposed to replace the current “antiquated” system — called automated system for customs data or AsyCUDA — that E-Konek and its partner, computer systems developer Webb Fontaine, had been using.
According to Margaroli, Lina owns 96.48 percent of E-Konek which, she claimed, had been earning as much as P500 million annually as a service provider for the BOC’s existing computer system since 2007.
“The new integrated system is a modern and faster mode of processing transactions in the BOC. It will also help curb corruption in the (BOC),” Margaroli told reporters after filing her 30-page complaint.
“In a matter of few seconds, you can finish a transaction, which could take hours to finish in the AsyCUDA system of E-Konek. It would also integrate the transactions in the BOC and lessen human intervention,” she added.
She urged Lina to review Omniprime’s proposal, which, she said, was approved after passing the rigorous seven-month bidding process during the tenure of his predecessor, former Customs chief John Sevilla.
In her complaint-affidavit, Margaroli said Lina ordered the cancellation of the project on May 6, barely two weeks after he replaced Sevilla, who quit his post due to alleged pressure from powerful government officials.
“The cancellation (ordered) by Lina was a grave instance of a criminal conflict of interest, manifest illegal partiality and malevolent bad faith because it benefited E-Konek Pilipinas,” read a portion of Margaroli’s complaint.
“The continuation of the project and its award in favor of (Omniprime) would have meant that the huge earnings E-Konek Pilipinas has been raking in since 2007 as a Value-Added System Provider… would dry up,” she added.
Margaroli said Parayno, as president of E-Konek, would be an “inevitable beneficiary of the criminal acts of respondents Lina and Aguas, and an indispensable party/conspirator.”
She assailed Aguas for requiring Omniprime and Intrasoft to undergo interview which, she argued, was barred under Republic Act No. 9184, or the Government Procurement Reform Act.
Said Margaroli: “Ultimately, the cancellation (of the project) is prejudicial to the Filipino people because it deprives them of a customs service that is highly efficient and graft- and corruption-free.” she said.
“In other words, its cancellation blocks the installation of an integrated customs transactions system that is intended to earn the government higher customs revenues it needs to pay for more infrastructure projects and basic social services,” she insisted.