Customs execs in frenzy for posts

CUSTOMS Commissioner Ruffy Biazon, with Lourdes Mangaoang in a photo-op event during the inspection of smuggled sugar from Thailand. Mangaoang is staking a claim to the top customs post at the Cebu port. JUNJIE MENDOZA/CEBU DAILY NEWS

CEBU CITY—Why customs officials cling to their posts may be a question with an obvious answer but in this city’s customs district, the obvious is made more glaring by officials aggressively staking claims to higher positions.

One case involved that of lawyer Ma. Lourdes Mangaoang, one of 15 senior collectors in the city’s customs office, who won reprieve from being transferred to another position courtesy of a Manila court decision.

Mangaoang is being moved to another place, along with many other officials, in an ongoing revamp of the customs bureau triggered by outrage over unabated corruption in the bureau. She is resisting the transfer, however, and tried to take over a higher position in an acting capacity in the Cebu port.

Mangaoang on Wednesday reported for work as Cebu deputy collector for assessment and even wanted to assume the post of acting customs collector, the highest ranking position in the customs district in Cebu.

Mangaoang, however, relented after she saw a copy of an order, signed by Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon, designating lawyer Paul Alcarazen, a career officer, as acting Cebu customs collector.

Alcarazen is among 17 customs officials who were appointed as officers in charge in different ports in the ongoing revamp.

In September, Biazon issued another order sending collectors and deputy collectors back to their permanent plantilla positions.

The order would have sent Ricardo Belmonte, a collector, back to the Cebu port from the port of Manila and Eduard dela Cuesta, collector of Cebu, back to Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

Last week, however, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima ordered all collectors with ranks of 5 to 6 to report to the Department of Finance’s cluster on revenue generation, essentially a desk job from where the collectors will have no direct transactions with consignees of shipments.

Fifteen of the 27 collectors covered by Purisima’s order, including Dela Cuesta, Mangaoang and Customs Cebu deputy collector for operation Francis Agustin Erpe, sought and got a temporary restraining order from a Manila court.

They claimed that their transfer violated due process and their security of tenure.

Judge Marino de la Cruz, of the Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 22, issued the 72-hour TRO which took effect on Oct 1.

On Wednesday, Mangaoang reported to her office and insisted that the TRO allowed her to resume her work as deputy collector for assessment of the Cebu customs district.

Alcarazen, previously assigned to the Mactan Cebu International Airport, said while Mangaoang is qualified to hold the position of deputy collector, he had to heed the order given by Biazon.