EMBLEMATIC of the hypocrisy and mismanagement that have become the hallmarks of this administration, the chief of the Bureau of Customs, John Phillip Sevilla, resigned last week with disturbing allegations of political pressure and attempts to turn his agency into a milking cow to raise campaign funds for favored candidates in the 2016 elections.
Sevilla was the third Customs commissioner to leave the agency under the administration of President Benigno Aquino III, who has made the fight against corruption the touchstone of his leadership.
Sevilla’s two predecessors had left the bureau amid allegations of corruption, tarnishing Mr. Aquino’s claims of good governance. Sevilla took over in December 2013 with the promise of cleaning up what is widely perceived as the most corrupt agency in the bureaucracy.
That promise came crashing down less than two years later with Sevilla’s resignation.
In announcing his resignation, Sevilla said he was being pressured to appoint certain people to “very sensitive” positions ahead of the 2016 elections, and admitted that he could not finish the job of ending corruption at the bureau.
“I don’t compromise on morality,” the resigning Customs chief said. “The law is clear on what is allowed and [what is] not.”
In its first statement following the resignation, the Palace conspicuously ignored Sevilla’s allegations, and simply announced his replacement, a person from the private sector with extensive interests in several brokerage-related companies. A Palace spokesman assured the public that there would be no conflict of interest, as the new Customs chief, Alberto D. Lina, would divest himself of his interest in his brokerage company—but said nothing of his holdings in at least 10 other corporations.
The announcement did little to engender confidence.
Are we expected to believe that Sevilla’s replacement would truly divest himself of all his lucrative business interests to take a job in the government in an administration with only a year left? Or is his appointment part of efforts that Sevilla resisted to make sure the ruling party stays in power after 2016?
Aquino’s first Customs commissioner, who resigned under a cloud of suspicion when 2,000 container vans vanished from the bureau in 2011, was a close associate of Lina.
Lina was also Customs chief during the previous administration, before he left abruptly as part of the “Hyatt 10” Cabinet members who abandoned the Arroyo government over an election-related scandal in 2005, and who now hold considerable influence in the Aquino administration.
Administration allies in the Senate have been fulsome in their praise for Sevilla, but have shown none of their usual eagerness to launch a congressional investigation into allegations of corruption in the Bureau of Customs, particularly since such a probe might expose “friendly forces” rather than political opponents.
But there can be no doubt that Sevilla must be encouraged—or compelled—to name names and provide a detailed account of what he knows. His failure to do so would be a betrayal of the morality he claims led to his resignation, and the public service he vowed to uphold when he took office at the Bureau of Customs.
In opening his mouth about corruption and influence peddling in the bureau, Mr. Sevilla has let the genie out of the bottle, and no amount of doubletalk from him or his former employers now can put it back in.