President Rodrigo Duterte said Saturday former Bureau of Customs commissioners Isidro Lapeña and Nicanor Faeldon were only hoodwinked by corrupt Customs people, saying they were both “eaten by the system.”“They are not corrupt. I wouldn’t have appointed them if they are, I’m sure of that. The shipments only happened to slip past them,” the President said in a speech during the MassKara Festival in Bacolod City Saturday.
Duterte said both the former commissioners were just tricked by the people working under them.
“They were not able to handle it because there was an insider. They were eaten by the system,” he said.
Duterte defended Lapeña and Faeldon, who were both reassigned amid shabu smuggling scandals at the bureau.
He said he has complete trust on the two officials, citing Faeldon’s role in tipping off the government about a cigarette company involved in illegal activity.
“If Faeldon was really corrupt, why did he tell me about the fake [documentary] stamps? He could have profited from it,” Duterte said.
The President was referring to Mighty Corp., a cigarette company accused of not paying excise taxes worth P37.9 billion and using fake tax stamps on its cigarettes.
The tobacco company settled its tax obligations by paying the government P40 billion.
“Faeldon was the one who gave me the tip that there is a cigarette manufacturer who was producing fake stamps. So I told him, ‘Focus and raid them.’ Do you know how much we earned in that raid as a consequence? Mighty… had to pay government P40 billion,” Duterte said.
The President also vouched for Lapeña’s honesty.
“He was my police chief for the longest time,” Duterte said.
In 2017, Faeldon resigned after P6.4 billion worth of shabu slipped past the Customs under his watch.
On Thursday, Duterte said he reassigned Lapeña to head the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority and called it a promotion.
Faeldon is set to become the next Bureau of Corrections director general after Ronald Dela Rosa filed his certificate of candidacy for senator.
Maritime Industry Authority Administrator Rey Leonardo Guerrero will then head the “corrupt-infested” BOC as its new commissioner.
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