BOC purge: 119 employees charged

MANILA, Philippines — More heads will roll at the Bureau of Customs as part of the crackdown on corruption in the graft-ridden agency after charges were filed against 119 erring employees, according to BOC Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero.

Guerrero said yesterday that they have filed administrative and criminal complaints against 119 employees allegedly involved in corrupt practices in the bureau.

He warned the other erring bureau employees that the BOC will file more complaints against corrupt personnel. 

Guerrero said that more employees will face charges before the Office of the Ombudsman as part of the monthly evaluation of personnel in a bid to curb corruption in the agency. 

“Itong 119 hindi ito ang katapusan dahil ang evaluation namin, ang monitoring namin is monthly. We are evaluating the performances of the appraisers, examiners, investigators and enforcers,” Guerrero told reporters in a press conference yesterday. 

“Talagang whether you like it or not, if talagang hindi ka mag-perform, pasensya na lang,” he added. 

Guerrero said that seven of the 119 employees include Manila International Container Port Customs Officer Ramon Hernandez, Customs Officer Lomonto Macabando, Customs Officers III Vanzandt Remonde and Vicente Gamboa who were already dismissed. 

Also charged were Customs special police assistant chief Jaybee Raul Cometa, BOC-Zamboanga special agent Oscar Farin and Customs security guard Renly Tiñana, who were among the seven officials dismissed by the Office of the Ombudsman. 

He said that one BOC employee was suspended pending investigation of the case. 

As far as the remaining 112 employees are concerned, Guerrero said that they have been placed on floating status pending investigation of their cases and were told to report to the Compliance Monitoring Unit (CMU) of the bureau. 

Nearly a year after he was appointed commissioner, Guerrero admitted that the payment of bribe or tara by smugglers to BOC employees still occurs.

He said the BOC collected P303.356 billion from January to June this year, which is 99.4 percent of their target P305.058-billion revenue collection. 

Guerrero said that BOC collection from January to June grew by 8.6 percent as compared to the same period of 2018 while he expressed optimism that they will be able to achieve the P677-billion target for the whole 2019.