Happy days for crooks at Customs

Bureau of Customs. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Happy days are here again for crooks at the Bureau of Customs where key positions are being manned by corrupt officials.

The crooks were placed in lucrative positions during a recent reshuffle upon the recommendation of a former customs commissioner who was sacked because of corruption.

The former customs commissioner now holds sway in the bureau after Commissioner John Phillip Sevilla resigned in disgust over the meddling of outsiders.

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There are two task forces going after smuggled goods that come out of the piers; they are not doing what’s mandated of them.

They’re supposed to help the bureau collect duties on shipments which were not properly inspected by customs personnel for one reason or another.

Task Force Pantalan seizes suspected shipments and brings them to an empty yard in Manila where the inspection is supposed to take place.

But the inspection doesn’t happen; the shipments are held hostage until the owners pay P5,000 for each container, according to my sources.

The task force of the Fair Trade Enforcement Bureau of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has the same modus operandi; the only difference is that the take is P25,000 per container.

Thousands of containers come out of the South Harbor and the Manila International Container Terminal daily.

You can imagine how much money those task forces earn every single day.

But the money doesn’t go to government coffers but to the pockets of task force members, according to unimpeachable sources.

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Originally, there was only one task force going after smuggled goods: Task Force Pantalan.

But the DTI men broke away from Task Force Pantalan because of disagreement with the original group over money.

One of the operatives of the task force is a Manila policeman who headed a group tasked to clear city streets of sidewalk vendors—but who was later sacked by Mayor Joseph “Erap” Estrada for extortion.

Secretary to the Cabinet Rene Almendras, who formed Task Force Pantalan, apparently didn’t check the background of its members.

Almendras, one of the honest members of President Noynoy’s Cabinet, doesn’t know about the shenanigans of the task force.

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If you see policemen patrolling the streets of Metro Manila in pairs or groups, that’s because they were ordered to do so by Director General (DG) Ricardo Marquez, the new chief of the Philippine National Police.

Marquez belongs to the “old school” in law enforcement that believes that police visibility in the streets prevents crime.

This old-school approach is still as effective today as it was many years ago.

The sight of a uniformed policeman in the streets discourages would-be criminals.

(Of course, that’s assuming that the would-be criminal is not a policeman; but that’s another story.)

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If I may add my two cents’ worth as a former police reporter, I suggest that DG Marquez return traffic policemen to the streets as added crime-fighting force.

Traffic policemen are not only effective in enforcing traffic regulations because they are armed, they are also accessible to ordinary citizens who need their help.

Policemen no longer direct traffic because their job has been taken over by traffic enforcers deployed by local governments.

But one can’t run to a traffic enforcer to report a crime in the streets because he’s unarmed and therefore not feared by criminals.

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