BOC exec set to drop bombshell at House

A Bureau of Customs (BOC) official being sought by the Senate blue ribbon committee to shed light on the biggest illegal drugs haul under the Duterte administration is scheduled to testify Tuesday in the House of Representatives.

Larrybert Hilario, head of the BOC Risk Management Office, will appear this morning before a House inquiry into the drug shipment to drop a bombshell, according to Majority Leader Rodolfo Fariñas.

Hilario is now under the protective custody of the House.

He has been blamed by BOC command center chief Gerardo Gambala for not putting data on the consignee of the shipment of “shabu” (crystal meth) in the BOC system that determines whether a shipment should be put in the green or other lanes for processing.

The shipment of 605 kilograms of shabu worth P6.4 billion passed through the green or “express” lane.

The BOC has been trying to locate Hilario since his suspension on May 30, Customs Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon said at the hearing of the Senate blue ribbon committee on Monday.

Sen. Richard Gordon, chair of the committee, ordered that Hilario and Richard Chen or Richard Tan, a Taiwanese who owned the warehouse where the alleged drug shipment was delivered, be subpoenaed for the next hearing on Aug. 8.

Gordon also sought a hold-departure order for Chen.

Sen. Panfilo Lacson said he wondered whether someone was manipulating the seizure of the shabu.

Lacson raised this point amid conflicting accounts by those who brought out the shipment from the BOC and by BOC officials at the blue ribbon committee hearing.

He asked why the BOC did not look into three shipments that arrived with the drug shipment on the same ship and supplier using the same consignee on May 17, especially after  China’s customs bureau tipped off the BOC of the drug shipment.

“One shipment was allowed to be caught while the three others were let go,” Lacson said.

He and Gordon found the letter of China’s General Administration of Customs to Faeldon suspicious and demeaning.

The July 17 letter by Zhang Xiaohui of the International Enforcement Cooperation Division Antismuggling Bureau said the agency was certifying that “no Filipino citizen was detected (by the group) to be involved in the drug smuggling” and that “there was only one shipment of drug destined for the Philippines.”

Lacson later told reporters he found the letter suspicious.

Faeldon said the letter from his Chinese counterpart was “just a piece of information.”

Neil Anthony Estrella, chief of the BOC intelligence and investigation service, said his group did not follow up the three other shipments because it “focused” on the drug shipment.

Lacson said the drug shipment should have been placed in the “red lane” because it came from China and EMT Trading was a new consignee.

He wondered why EMT Trading, owned by Eirene Mae Tatad and was able to bring in 524 shipments of which 484 were in the green lane, was given this privilege.

Gordon placed Mark Ruben Taguba II,  owner of the trucking company that delivered the drug shipment to Chen’s warehouse, under protective custody after he sought and held an executive session with senators during the hearing.

Taguba said he was asked by Kenneth Dong to help facilitate the shipment that went to Chen’s warehouse. It was later learned that Dong left the country on July 28 for Chengdu.