Lifestyle check on Customs execs sought

MANILA, Philippines — Bureau of Customs Commissioner Isidro Lapeña has been asked to conduct a lifestyle check on officials and personnel of the BOC amid the Duterte administration’s crackdown on corruption.

In a one-page letter on Friday, a group calling themselves the “Real concerned BOC employees” urged Lapeña to look into the wealth of two Customs officials who have allegedly displayed lavish lifestyle.

“We are asking you, Commissioner Lapeña, to look into the Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth of these officials,” read the letter.

The group specifically named Jimmy Guban, the Customs intelligence officer who is being investigated on a P6.8-billion shabu shipment believed to have slipped past the BOC.

Guban was ordered detained last week by Sen. Richard Gordon after he was cited in contempt for supposedly lying under oath during the Senate inquiry into the drug shipment.

The group also named lawyer Lourdes Mangaoang, assigned at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport, whom they accused of being the source of information on the drug shipment.

The group claimed that based on the Facebook accounts of Guban and Mangaoang, the officials allegedly own luxury cars, live in impressive houses and often travel with their relatives and friends.

Agents of the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency (PDEA) raided a warehouse in General Mariano Alvarez, Cavite last August, and found magnetic lifters believed to have contained up to P6.8 billion worth of shabu.

The PDEA linked it to the P4.3 billion worth of shabu found in similar magnetic lifters and seized at the Port of Manila also in August.

The National Bureau of Investigation has started its parallel probe on the shabu shipment.