The Office of the Ombudsman on Friday found probable cause to charge Undersecretary for Operations Juan Miguel Cuna of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources with graft for the shipment of trash from Canada.
It directed Environment Secretary Roy Cimatu to implement its suspension order on Cuna for three months without pay for simple misconduct.
The Ombudsman said the DENR official violated Section 3(e) of Republic Act 3019 or the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act for the mishandling of the shipment of container vans consigned to Chronic Plastics Inc.
In 2013, the Valenzuela-based Chronic Plastics Inc., a Canadian-based company, exported several shipments of container vans declared as plastic scrap materials without securing import entries for its shipment that arrived in July 2013 and August 2013.
Consequently, the shipments were declared as abandoned and that upon further inspection, it was discovered that the container vans were filled with garbage.
According to the Ombudsman, the DENR’s Environmental Management Bureau also found the garbage could no longer be recycled and were even declared illegal due to lack of importation clearance, and were subject to confiscation and seizure proceedings.
Upon closer scrutiny of documents, investigators found that Cuna, then the EMB director, issued a registry certificate for the importation of recyclable materials containing hazardous substances on June 19, 2013 despite the lack of details in the importer’s registry sheet.
Moreover, Cuna issued six importation clearances to Chronic Plastics Inc. despite an existing notice of violation issued on Sept. 5, 2013 for importing heterogeneous and assorted plastic materials in violation of DENR Administrative Order No. 1994-28.
“Respondent Cuna acted with gross inexcusable negligence when he issued a registry certificate in favor of Chronic Plastics despite the insufficient details in its importer registry sheet. x x x Its failure to comply with the rules is apparent on the face of the application. Without the necessary information, the EMB cannot sufficiently make a determination that Chronic Plastics is capable of recycling materials to be imported. However, despite this, respondent Cuna still approved Chronic Plastic’s application for registration,” the resolution read.
“It must be emphasized that it is the mission of the EMB to protect, restore and enhance environmental quality toward good public health, environmental integrity, and economic viability. It is also mandated to strictly implement environmental laws and restrict or prohibit the importation, manufacture, processing, sale, distribution, use and disposal of chemical substances and mixtures that present unreasonable risk and/or injury to health or the environment.”
At least 50 container vans filled with trash from Ontario, Canada were shipped to Manila in June 2013 via the Chronic Plastics Inc.