The Bureau of Customs has never been an easy assignment. When Isidro Lapeña took on the job, people had been used to his predecessors’ failure not only to generate correct and much-needed revenue for the government, but to curb the corruption that had bedeviled the agency for decades.
It is intriguing, then, to see the Palace coming to the rescue of Lapeña in the latest controversy to hit the bureau. He is accused of “looking the other way” as an estimated P11 billion worth of shabu slipped under his watch and found its way to the streets.
Presidential Spokesman Salvador Panelo only had glowing words for the embattled former commissioner: “[He] managed it untainted and instituted several reform initiatives resulting in a substantial increase in its revenue collection that even surpassed its given targets.”
Panelo added that the President continues to have, not trust and confidence, but complete trust and confidence, in Lapeña’s competence and integrity.
In fact Mr. Duterte trusted him so much that he has moved him to the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority as its would-be director-general—a promotion in rank, it turns out. Lapeña is now a member of the Cabinet.
But if Lapeña were doing so well at Customs, then why was he transferred to another agency?
Panelo added, in a radio interview, that Mr. Duterte wants to spare him from intrigue “because he has been extremely defamed.”
Who is Lapeña, really, and what makes him so special that he has to be protected from intrigue? Public service makes everybody who chooses to embrace it fair game. Lapeña is a grown man who can pick his battles and fight them himself.
Then again, we cannot say we are surprised.
President Duterte once said he would remove officials with so much as a whiff of corruption about them. This pronouncement, however, has been mocked countless times by the Palace itself as controversial officials were merely transferred to other agencies where they would be less conspicuous.
With his reassignment, Lapeña’s troubles seem as though they would dissipate soon. He has the best weapon of all: The protection of the Palace that cares about his feelings and has nothing but contempt for his enemies who make his life difficult.
The rest of us, however, who are not as fortunate, must continue to deal with the failure of our leaders and our institutions, and who make our life difficult.