PRESIDENT Duterte was speaking at the inauguration of a rice processing complex in Alangalang, Leyte, last Friday when he announced he was going to revisit the Bureau of Customs and “there will be a lot of dismissals… try to stop the corruption in the higher class.” He said, “I would be firing more from the Bureau of Customs… maybe ilagay ko na sa Army.”
Elimination of corruption in government was one of the leading campaign promises of President Duterte in the 2016 election. In the three years of his administration, however, he has expressed regret about running and winning the election because of the number of allies he had to let go due to their alleged involvement in corrupt practices.
In the course of his speech in Leyte, he said his campaign against corruption in the government is far from over, as he announced that he had just accepted the resignation of the president and the general manager of a government agency.
It was also last week that Sen. Panfilo Lacson charged that it was “business as usual” at the Bureau of Customs. “Despite my expose on the massive corruption inside the Bureau of Customs, much to my dismay, I was informed just recently that the tara system has never been, by any chance, suppressed.”
The President, it may be recalled, appointed a retired captain of the Philippine Marines to the position of commissioner of the Bureau of Customs. He was subsequently replaced after a R6.4-billion drug shipment was seized in two Valenzuela City warehouses after apparently slipping past customs. His replacement, a former operations director of the Philippine National Police, didn’t last long in the position, after another huge drug shipment was found to have been smuggled via magnetic lifters. He was replaced by a third ex-military man, a former chief of staff of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, no less, but now there is another drug problem at customs involving a tapioca shipment.
These men, with their military experience, may have been outmaneuvered despite their determined efforts in the bureau. The President might try a new tack in his efforts to clean up the Bureau of Customs. If he wants to try another man to lead this most difficult government bureau, he might try finding someone in the BOC who has been there for years and, therefore, well-versed in its operations, one who knows the law, and, most important, one who is worthy of the President’s trust.
