Senator Panfilo Lacson told Customs Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero to ask President Rodrigo Duterte for blanket authority to fight the alleged massive corruption in the agency, the lawmaker revealed Thursday.
Meanwhile, Ombudsman Samuel Martires proposed to include the private sector in the Office of the Ombudsman’s scope of graft investigations—and called on lawmakers to consider his suggestion.
In a radio interview with DZMM, Lacson said that when Guerrero visited his office, the senator told the Customs chief to ask the President for blanket authority “even for three months” to prove his worth in combatting corruption.
Guerrero should then use this authority to choose his own people at Customs, a basic tenet in leadership training, the senator stressed.
Without it, Lacson said the former Armed Forces chief would have a “very tough job” cleansing the agency under the Department of Finance.
The senator clarified he is not trying to meddle with the President’s prerogative to make appointments at the BOC, even after Duterte recently dismissed 64 Customs officials—including Guerrero’s own chief of staff—for alleged corrupt practices.
“If you’re given responsibility, there should be commensurate authority. If you were lacking in authority and the mandate for responsibility, that’s a sure formula for failure. Your people would not obey you, even your deputy if they’re not your appointee,” he explained.
“So siga-siga yan (they’ll act as bullies). You won’t be able to rein them in. But if he (Guerrero) has blanket authority and he knows that he won’t be overruled by Malacañang or his immediate boss at the SOF (Secretary of Finance), there you will see a person’s capacity to lead,” the senator stressed.
If Guerrero fails in this job, Lacson—a former national police chief himself—said the President can always take back the blanket authority.
Although he has not yet heard any negative things about Guerrero following his own inquiries and Senate exposes on the Bureau of Customs, Lacson believes his former fellow man in uniform should have carte blanche over the money-making agency.
The President, in his recent fourth State of the Nation Addressed, stressed he still has full trust in Guerrero, one of several former military men he has appointed to government posts.
Meanwhile, Martires asked lawmakers to consider his suggestion to extend the Ombudsman’s powers to include the private sector, not just government agencies, as he believes there is a need to expand its jurisdiction and anti-corruption mandate over corrupt individuals.
“I will ask Congress to file and pass a law that would include the private sector in our fight against corruption,” he said. “We should extend the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act to the private sector.”
Martires initiated Thursday a multi-sectoral meeting, batting for the mandatory inclusion of values formation, and religious education in primary, secondary and tertiary education as deterrent measures against corruption.
The former Supreme Court justice claimed to receive a phone call about an Ombudsman employee demanding for money in exchange for a favorable case resolution.
Upon verification, the person being complained about was not an Ombudsman worker.
“That is a problem to me. My hair is getting black [from silver, in exerting all efforts] to prevent corruption,” he said.
Under Republic Act 3019, private individuals are not covered by the Ombudsman’s investigations, except any person “having family or close personal relation with any public official to capitalize or exploit or take advantage of such family or close personal relation.”