THE latest feat by the Bureau of Customs is stupefying.
We don’t refer to the more than P50 million worth of smuggled goods that had been destroyed in a condemnation facility. Customs Commissioner Isidro Lapeña seemed proud of his agency’s destruction of about 500,000 pieces of clothes, shoes, watches and other apparel.
It’s a different distinction altogether, enough perhaps to cause Customs officials to hang their heads in shame. It is four container vans of shabu worth over P7 billion that had magically escaped Customs’ watchful eyes and ended up at a warehouse in Cavite.
According to the director general of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency, Aaron Aquino, his team found four magnetic lifting equipment at a warehouse in General Mariano Alvarez. They were tipped off by a caretaker.
Unfortunately by the time the team got there, the containers were empty.
Only trained dogs confirmed that drugs had been in the containers. The drugs were no longer there and had made their way to the streets, Aquino said. That’s more trade for the pushers and more substance for the users in a country that has declared an all-out war against illegal drugs.
Aquino said he had informed Lapeña of their Cavite discovery and that Lapeña had said he would relieve the MICT collector immediately. Documents revealed the four containers were shipments from Taiwan.
Incidents such as these make a mockery of the President’s supposedly hard-lined stance against drugs. The Philippine National Police has been trying to execute Mr. Duterte’s wishes, negotiating the thin line between enforcement and alleged violation of human rights. All these zeal counts for nothing if such large shipments continue to come in and flood the local market.
Aquino says the syndicates have become more creative over time and are one step ahead of them. This is because the Bureau of Customs, under various leaderships, is just so far behind in the performance of its mandate to ensure only legitimate shipments pass through our borders. This is not the first time that drug shipments worth billions have been allowed in.
Small wonder the bureau has maintained its notoriety for incompetence and corruption. We wonder whether the Palace will ever truly decisively act on this seemingly hopeless agency.