Surefire recipe for a reformed PNP

How do you solve the problem of discipline within the Philippine National Police?

If they have no qualms disposing of tsinelas (flip-flop)-using drug pushers, why can’t the PNP higher-ups get rid of the scumbags among their ranks with “extreme prejudice” as they are no different from criminals?

As I once overheard a police official telling his men at the Western Police District (now Manila Police District): “Kung walang baril, plantingan ng baril (If he has no gun, then plant one).”   His men then were about to undertake a mission to arrest a notorious crime suspect.

Policemen who commit crimes are far worse than ordinary criminals because they use their authority and abuse the trust the citizens have given them.

After being proclaimed winner in the May elections and days before he was sworn into office, President Digong said criminals who committed execrable deeds should be killed by hanging and their bodies put on display.

SPO3 Ricky Sta. Isabel and his ilk who abducted and killed Korean businessman Jee Ick-joo could be held as examples to convey the message that the vilest of rogue cops would no longer be tolerated.

Their dead bodies could be displayed hanging on posts in strategic places inside Camp Crame.

A piece of cardboard should be hung around their necks declaring, “Never again.”

And since cops can’t kill a fellow cop even if the latter is despicably bad, let the secret execution be done by soldiers.

That’s a surefire recipe for a reformed PNP.

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The rampant smuggling of palm olein, the main ingredient in making cooking oil, defrauds the government of billions of pesos in unpaid duties and taxes yearly and practically drives the local palm and coconut producers into bankruptcy.

Smuggled palm olein is bought cheap in the local market to the detriment of legitimate producers of cooking oil.

The smuggling has affected not only the refiners but also the planters or farmers of palm and coconut trees.

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How is the smuggled palm olein brought in?

The importer (read: smuggler) brings in the product in bulk cargo of, say, 10,000 metric tons (MT) in two bills of lading.

One bill of lading is for 500 MT and the other, 9,500 MT.

The importer pays value added tax (VAT) for the 500 MT, pumps out the 10,000 MT to the storage tanks or barges and gets away without having to pay 12-percent VAT for the 9,500 MT.

Multiply the aforementioned situation thousands of times and you get an idea how much the government loses every year to smugglers of palm olein.

Now you have an idea why cooking oil from smuggled palm olein is sold cheap in the market; proper taxes were not paid.

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I checked with my sources at the BOC who the brokers of the shipment of smuggled olein are and I was given at least two names.

They are bigtime brokers, according to my sources.

Customs Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon might want to know the names of the brokers: I will give them to him.

If he comes across the names of these two brokers his alarm bell should ring and he can have their shipments inspected or held.