He could have been your son or my grandson

Customs Commissioner Bert Lina’s call on the public to help the Bureau of Customs expose officials and employees who lead lavish lifestyle has been criticized by some customs insiders as “press release.”

These insiders say Lina couldn’t even stop some customs officials and employees from collecting “tara” (bribe) from importers and brokers for prompt release of their undervalued imported items.

What’s Lina to do? Damn if he does, damn if he doesn’t.

Lina is appealing to the public to help clean up his bureau, and here are insiders who criticize him probably because they will be affected.

A top customs official who’s a publicity hound has been blaming the bureau’s leadership for not stopping the endemic corruption in the bureau.

But you know what? This customs official brought with him to the bureau outsiders who are collecting tara from importers.

Everybody in the customs bureau knows about the extortion activities of this customs official’s aides except him; or he pretends not to know.

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If you see any government official or employee gambling at any of the casinos, take photos of him or her—discreetly of course.

Then send his or her smoking gun photo to us at [email protected].

Please identify the official or employee, the date and time he or she played at the casino; also, identify which casino.

An official of the Land Transportation Office (LTO) got sacked after she was caught on camera playing in the casino.

Let’s expose more government personnel leading extravagant lifestyle.

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What’s taking Manila Regional Trial Court Judge Jansen Rodriguez so long to decide on the bail petition of those accused in the alleged murder of Ensign Philip Pestaño?

Please put emphasis on “alleged” for that’s what it is.

The accused are retired and active Navy officers and enlisted men who were shipmates of Pestaño.

The bail petition hearing started in September 2014 and is still ongoing.

All the witnesses against the accused officers and enlisted personnel have so far presented speculations and no hard evidence.

If the good judge thinks that they should not be granted bail, why prolong the hearing?

But if he thinks that there is no hard evidence against them, he should grant them temporary liberty because it’s their constitutional right to post bail.

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A fidgety young student came to the “Isumbong mo kay Tulfo” office on Tuesday.

He told me and my staff some people—his classmates, his teachers and friends—were out to kill him.

He was talking to himself at a corner in the office and would not accept water or food we offered him.

He told us we might have placed poison in the water and food.

I immediately suspected he was very “high” on “shabu” (methamphetamine hydrochloride) and warned my staff not to get near him.

When we asked him if we could call his relatives, he gave us a number on his cell phone.

It was his aunt we talked to; she said she would fetch him at our office.

As the office hours were drawing near, we told the guards to take him to the lobby so he could wait for his aunt there.

He fled before the aunt arrived.

That boy clearly brought home the problem of drug addiction among the youth: He could have been your son or my grandson.

The next President, whoever he or she is, should first solve the drug problem before anything else.

Davao City Mayor Rody Duterte has solved the drug problem in his city.

Unfortunately he’s not running for President.