Customs chief’s 1st target: Bogus media

After formally taking over the Bureau of Customs (BOC) on Monday, new Customs Commissioner Rozzano Rufino Biazon began his cleanup drive starting with the “hao-siaos” or bogus media practitioners covering the agency as initial targets.

Biazon said he would coordinate with legitimate press groups to come up with an accreditation system to weed out fake journalists at the BOC “as soon as possible.”

“It’s just like what we did with Senate, Congress, and Malacañang,” Biazon said after the formal turnover rites at the BOC Monday.

Biazon said the accreditation rules would come out only after he finishes consulting various legitimate media organizations.

“I don’t want to be arbitrary… on my part. I would still have to consult with the media groups (because) we are bordering here on freedom of the press. So, I don’t want this to be my own decision,” he said.

“I want media cooperation so that there would be a consensus. So, we would sit down with existing legitimate groups and find out if we could come up with a set of rules that we could apply here in the BOC,” he added.

Biazon said he would also clamp down on erring customs officials responsible for the BOC’s reputation as the “most corrupt” government agency.

“It cannot be denied that there are some amongst us those who have shamelessly tarnished the image of all BOC employees and officials. While they treat themselves lavishly with the fruits of their unscrupulous activities, everyone else suffers under the scornful stare of an angry and disgusted public,” he said.

“As mandated by the President himself, we will clamp down on the abuse by those who damaged the image of the bureau and of each one of us,” he added.

Biazon said these were “turbulent times” for the BOC with public esteem for the agency “depressingly low.”

“In media reports and opinion columns, ‘most corrupt’ is the usual description of the Bureau of Customs, with stories of incidents ranging from paying P20 just to pass a document from one desk to another to multimillion payoffs for missing container vans,” he said.