SENATE BLUE RIBBON COMMITTEE HEARING / JULY 31, 2017
Capt. Gerardo Gambala, Command Center, Bureau of Customs and Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon answers questions fron the Senate blue ribbon committee hearing on the P6.4 Billion worth of shabu shipment from China on Monday, July 31, 2017.
INQUIRER PHOTO / GRIG C. MONTEGRANDE
With the Bureau of Customs (BOC) allowing 600 kilograms of shabu worth P6.4-billion from China to enter the country, Senator Richard Gordon said the agency’s officials are either incompetent or corrupt.
“This is really the gang who can’t shoot straight. Either you’re incompetent or you are corrupt. That’s the whole point here,” Gordon said in a statement on Tuesday.
The chairman of the Senate blue ribbon committee expressed umbrage over BOC’s failure to prevent the drug shipment despite the Duterte administration’s intensive fight against illegal drugs.
The 605-kilogram shabu or methamphetamine hydrochloride could be distributed to more than 600,000 people had it reached the streets, said Gordon.
On Monday, Gordon’s committee held an inquiry on the shabu shipment seized by the BOC itself during a raid in two Valenzuela warehouses last May 26.
The seizure of illegal drugs happened days after the shipment was released by the Customs last May 23.
He also lambasted the BOC led by Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon and other officials for their lapses in conducting the raid and for their failure to press charges against the personalities involved.
In the next inquiry on August 8, Gordon vowed to pinpoint through the investigation how the illegal shipment was able to pass through practically undetected; whether BOC personnel were involved and whether it was because of the change in the BOC’s system.
“My conclusion, paano nakakapagpadala nang mas maluwag ngayon? Lumuwag ba? Mayroon bang sabwatan? Paano nakakalusot? Sino ang nagpapalusot? Dahil ba pinalitan nila yung Sistema? So, you really have to find out. And that’s why we’re doing this. That’s why we have to find out what’s going on,” he said.
Gordon said the public relies on the BOC, the Commissioner in particular, to guard the front door of the country and prevent the entry of drugs, especially now that many Filipinos are dying in the drug war.
“Hindi ba dapat pag-ingatan niyong maigi iyan because ang daming namamatay sa drugs ngayon? Galit na galit ang tao sa drugs kaya pumapalakpak pa sila pag may napapatay na kilalang drug pusher. And therefore, it is incumbent upon you as Commissioner and your team, na dapat extraordinary diligence kayo,” he said./ac