Stop car smuggling! Catch car smugglers!

What a country! We imposed a logging ban but if you go to the Butuan River you will see newly cut logs floating by as if there was no logging ban at all. We imposed a ban on commercial fishing in certain areas and we can still see a lot of commercial fishers plying their usual routes despite the ban. We have laws on intellectual property rights (IPR) and yet, Muslim traders sell the latest pirated films in public view where their customers (who include many of our law enforcers) continue patronizing them.

Then we’ve got laws against smuggling and President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) even went the extra mile to destroy with a backhoe those smuggled vehicles in Subic Bay just to make a point, yet smuggling goes unabated! So when I read the news that P10 million worth of smuggled luxury vehicles were seized at the Cebu Port, I could hear a collective sigh from the people in the coffeehouse, saying, “Big news, but those car smugglers will never get caught!” Indeed, for as long as we don’t hear any of the names we know who smuggle cars in Cebu, all of this is nothing but drama!

A couple of years ago, I reported in this column a spanking new BMW C-650 sporting an “8” license plate, which should have triggered an investigation either by the Land Transportation Office (LTO) or Congress, but neither made any investigation at all. But two Cebuano congressmen wrote me a letter that they didn’t have the car I mentioned in my column. But that was the end of that story and because there were no investigations into my report… smuggling continues to this day.

On July 24, 2003 then Cebu Deputy Customs collector Edgardo “Wewe” Lao and Customs appraiser Bennet Soreño were assassinated in broad daylight just a few meters from the Region 7 headquarters of the Philippine National Police (PNP) along Osmeña Boulevard, which also resulted in the death of Allan Dave Ravina, a young schoolboy. A few months later, police supposedly arrested the suspected killers, Juan Jesus Vergel de Dios and Rustico Fernandez, who denied killing Lao and gave no information as to who masterminded the assassination.

I would like to believe that the mastermind of Wewe Lao’s killing is still very much alive and kicking and still smuggling cars, which means if anyone steps on their toes, you’re going to get killed! So will the latest investigation into car smuggling in Cebu result in the end of the smuggling of cars here? You’ve got to be joking! For as long as there are syndicates that help car smugglers sell their cars complete with license plates (including a congressman’s license plate) and people who facilitate the entry of those container vans loaded with cars, car smuggling would never end.

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I was watching a CNN report last Monday morning about that international near-shooting incident at the Straits of Hormuz last Jan. 6 where Iranian speedboats virtually threatened US Navy ships patrolling nearby. The US Navy commanders apparently heard a radio transmission saying, “I’m coming at you; you will explode in a couple of minutes!” US Navy officials until today are puzzled as to who made that radio transmission. What made me curious about the CNN report was that ships operating in the Middle East seem to point to a mysterious, but profane voice known as the “Filipino Monkey.” So who is this “Filipino Monkey” who seems to be getting famous in international maritime circles?

I checked in Wikipedia about the Filipino Monkey and this is what was written: “The term ‘Filipino Monkey’ has come to describe a particular radio prankster (and his imitators in maritime radio transmission). All ships at sea are required to monitor VHF marine channel 16, which is the International Emergency Distress Frequency for shipping and maritime purposes. The channel is meant only to be used for establishing contact, at which point the users are supposed to change to a different frequency. However, in certain areas of the world this frequency has been used by pranksters who listen in on the ship-to-ship traffic and then starts transmitting miscellaneous messages.”

So again the big question is, who is this “Filipino Monkey” who apparently has been on the radio as a prankster for the last 25 years, making obscenities over maritime radio? To be totally honest, during our Citizen’s Band (CB) radio days, we, too, had our share of radio pranksters, which still happens today with the radios used by the Philippine National Police (PNP) or even CITOM. While this may sound derogatory to Filipinos, perhaps some of the words he uses are Tagalog words, a.k.a. Filipino, which is why he got the name “Filipino Monkey.”

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For e-mail responses to this article, write to [email protected]. Bobit Avila’s columns can also be accessed through www.philstar.com. He also hosts a weekly talkshow, “Straight from the Sky,” shown every Monday, 8 p.m., only in Metro Cebu on Channel 15 of SkyCable.