Soldiers can be deployed to Customs — Lorenzana

MANILA, Philippines — Defense Secretary Delfin Loenzana yesterday said he is open to the proposal to temporarily detail soldiers to the Bureau of Customs (BOC) to help run the bureau.

However, Lorenzana pointed out that sending active military personnel to BOC will only be temporary and serve as a stop gap measure while newly installed BOC chief Ray Leonardo Guerrero is still in the process forming his own trusted civilian team who will be working with him in the bureau.

“It’s OK with me. But it will not be on a permanent basis,” Lorenzana said on possible deployment of soldiers to BOC if Guerrero will request for warm bodies from the military.

President Duterte had transfered former Customs chief Isidro Lapeña and put the other BOC commissioners on floating status to give Guerrero blanket authority to appoint his own trusted people, including bringing in soldiers, who will be working with him.

In giving Guerrero a free hand in overhauling BOC personnel, Lorenzana said the President wants him (Guerrero) to really have a fresh start in leading the bureau.

“He  was given blanket authority to reshuffle and change people as the President wants him to have a fresh start in dismantling well-entrenched syndicates inside the bureau,” Lorenzana said.

Brig. Gen. Edgard Arevalo, AFP spokesman, meanwhile, said the military is willing to provide Guerrero with warm bodies from the military if he requests for it.

“Yes, the AFP will support the BOC-designated Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero when he so asks. We want him to succeed as such will redound to the benefit of the nation and our people,” Arevalo said.

President Duterte is expecting the new Customs leadership to curb corruption in the bureau and to work closely with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) to stop illegal drugs smuggling. 

Presidential spokesman Salvador Panelo said nacotics managed to slip past Philippine ports because of corrupt personnel.   

“(The President issued) the same directive – get rid of the corruption there. In fact, that’s the reason why he fired the heads (of customs units),” Panelo told radio station dzMM last Friday when asked about the President’s marching orders to Guerrero.

“They will be working hand-in-hand in eradicating the drug menace in the country. That is the marching order of the President,” he added. 

Bureau of Customs Employees Association (BOCEA) president Remedios Princesa yesterday said that she hopes that Guerrero, a retired Armed Forces of the Philippines chief, does not have the perception that all the officials and employees of the bureau are corrupt. 

Guerrero’s two previous predecessors, former Marine captain Nicanor Faeldon and retired police general and former PDEA director general Lapeña, were both removed by President Duterte from the BOC after large shipments of shabu were allegedly smuggled in and not detected by BOC personnel during their watch. 

Princesa, who leads the estimated 3,000 BOCEA members, admitted that while it was true that there were “bad eggs” in the bureau, she insisted that their numbers are few. 

“There are still a lot of good people here at the BOC, there are still a lot of dedicated civil servants working at the bureau. It is just that the public does not see how hardworking we are in our job, such as working beyond office hours even if there is no overtime pay,” Princesa said. 

“I just hope that the new commissioner does not have any preconceived opinion that everyone at the BOC is corrupt,” she added.

Lapeña earlier said that he advised Guerrero to improve his counter-intelligence measures because some Customs employees are engaged in illegal activities and would block the reforms the Duterte administration would want to implement.

Princesa said that they appealed to Guerrero to provide a housing program for the employees since many of them still do not have their own homes.

She hopes that they would be able to have a low-monthly, low-interest housing program that would allow them to pay off the loan in several years. 

“We are ready to welcome the new leadership because during the time of commissioner Lapeña he did not honor our Collective Negotiation Agreement (CNA) with former commissioner Alberto Lina wherein for three consecutive years from 2016 to 2018, each employee would be receiving P25,000 every year,” she said. 

She said that Faeldon honored the CNA but Lapeña did not implement their CNA for 2017 reportedly because there were no savings “but we are able to turn over surplus collection to the Bureau of Treasury” and that he was not the commissioner who approved the CNA. – With Alexis Romero, Evelyn Macairan