What was once touted as a problem that can be licked within just a day has turned out to be almost indestructible, “existing since time immemorial until today.”
This realization concerning corruption bedeviling the Bureau of Customs (BOC) surfaced during the recent 13th public hearing by the Quad Committee of the House Of Representatives.
Asked pointblank by the committee if corruption persisted in the BOC, all the five resource persons invited to the hearing answered “yes.”
The five are Customs intelligence director Emiterio Bitong, Customs Prosecution Chief Christopher Buco, Customs police major Camilo Cascolan, Jr., former Customs intelligence officer Jimmy Guban and former Customs broker Mark Taguba.
Quad committee senior vice chairman Romeo Acop said that in the center of corruption activities in the BOC is the so-called “tara system.”
The “tara system” is a scheme where customs officials receive bribes or “grease money” to facilitate the entry of imported goods without proper inspection or documentation. This system allows importers to bypass standard customs procedures, often referred to as the “green lane,” instead of going through the more rigorous “red lane” for inspection.
According to Rep. Acop, proceeds from the “tara system” were being distributed to corrupt Customs officials and employees every Friday, at 3:00 in the afternoon.
This distribution of loot is widely known among BOC insiders as the “3 o’clock Friday habit,” the Quad Committee co-chair revealed.
Rep. Acop also said during the televised hearing that corruption in the BOC existed “since time immemorial.”
Back in 2014, then Davao City mayor Rodrigo Duterte raised the nation’s hopes that government corruption can be eradicated swiftly. This claim helped pave Duterte’s road to the presidency two years later.
“Sabi, may bumaba ditong smuggled goods. Sabi ko pagbababarilin ko kayo. If this guy goes, I will gladly kill him. I will not hesitate. I will do it for my country,” was Duterte’s bold claim in 2014 when he appeared in an anti-smuggling hearing by the Senate committee on agriculture.
(They said there were smuggled goods that were unloaded. I said I will shoot everyone involved. If this guy goes, I will gladly kill him. I will not hesitate. I will do it for my country.)
Duterte stressed during the 2014 Senate appearance that he could stop smuggling or corruption even in just half-a-day.
Ironically, during Duterte’s presidency, a major scandal broke out in the Customs bureau due to alleged smuggling. A syndicate known as the “Davao Group” allegedly controlled smuggling at the country’s main port.
The alleged smuggling syndicate was supposed to be headed by Duterte’s son, Rep. Paolo Duterte, and son-in-law, Atty. Manases Carpio, husband of Vice President Sara Duterte.
Both Rep. Duterte and Atty. Carpio have denied the allegations through numerous public statements and in appearances in Senate hearings in 2017.
The present House Quad Committee, still, has continued probing claims about the smuggling syndicate even as Rep. Duterte and Atty. Carpio had yet to volunteer appearances in the ongoing hearings.
In the recent Quad Committee session, resource person Guban said that a huge part of the “tara” went to the Davao Group during the Duterte presidency.
“It’s the Davao group that was controlling during that time,” Guban testified. “So regardless na po ‘yon kung anong klase ng kargamento ang papasok [we accept it] which is kaya nag-proliferate ang illegal drugs, pati na ho agricultural products ang dami po no’n kasi hindi kontrolado ng Customs officials ang Bureau of Customs.”
(It’s the Davao group that was controlling during that time.. So regardless of what kind of cargo was coming in, we accepted it, which was why illegal drugs proliferated, and even agricultural products were smuggled because Customs officials did not control BOC.)
