How many more lifters with shabu got in?

How many more magnetic lifters containing shabu were smuggled through seaports in recent months? Customs must find out, after its chief conceded that illicit drugs were sneaked inside the steel contraptions that ended up in Cavite last July.

Sen. Richard Gordon wants Customs to review its records. Shipment dates, origins, destinations, gross and net weights, brokers, consignees, and warehouse addresses are to be checked.

Gordon’s request was relayed last week. Customs has yet to report to the Blue Ribbon Committee, which will hold on Tuesday a fifth hearing on shabu smuggling via lifters.

The hearing will refocus on faulty x-ray inspections of contraband inside metal gadgets. Summoned are supervisor John Mar Morales and x-ray operator Manuel Martinez, who had cleared for release last July 14 four lifters apparently laden with meth.

The two x-ray men can be held for drug smuggling, for which they face life terms, Gordon said. The flood of shabu led to sudden drop of Manila street prices to P1,400 a gram from P6,800, according to Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency head Aaron Aquino. Too, police buy-busts began to net shabu by the kilos from the usual handful of sachets from street pushers.

At a parallel House inquiry the other day Morales and Martinez reiterated finding nothing suspicious in x-ray images of the lifters. Debunking them, the former head of the x-ray unit for five years pointed up cloudiness in the lifters’ hollow insides, indicating contraband. They should have made a physical inspection, said Atty. Lourdes Mangaoang. Metals like safes are often used to hide contraband, Mangaoang cited from experience of interdicting P17 billion worth of firearms, drugs, and jewelry during postings at Customs offices in Cagayan de Oro and Iloilo.

An expert from the public works department also testified that the lifters had patches of lead inside. Odd, as lead would impede the lifters’ electromagnetism. He corroborated Mangaoang’s point that the gadgets were not imported for operation but only to conceal drugs, as there were no requisite cranes, chains, cables, and support frames.

Customs intelligence agent Jimmy Guban expounded at the House on his earlier Senate confession of two meth shipments at the Manila International Container Port. Implicated anew were sacked police colonel Eduardo Acierto and PDEA deputy Ismael Fajardo, Guban’s criminology schoolmate.

In the first shipment of four lifters on July 14, Guban’s role was to look for a consignee-for-hire. Acierto allegedly told him to get such fake importer of the lifters to be delivered to Gen. Mariano Alvarez, Cavite.

In the second, on Aug. 7, Guban staged a “seizure” of 355 kilos of shabu in two more lifters at MICP. They at first had tried to retrieve the shabu, but feigned a bust to heroize themselves after preparations went awry. From Acierto, Guban swore he learned exactly where to saw open the lifters’ underbelly to reveal the shabu.

Absent from the House, Acierto and Fajardo had denied Guban’s previous story at the Senate. Guban will be state witness, Gordon said.

Only from a tip by a warehouseman, who saw the “bust” on TV news, did PDEA find the four lifters in Cavite. Seven Chinese lessors already had emptied them of contents on July 15, also by cutting the underbelly. Still PDEA sniffer dogs detected drugs. Checking the metal lifters against the declared import gross and net weights, PDEA’s Aquino determined that 1,600 kilos of shabu had slipped past Customs. One of the seven Chinese, James Foong, is in PDEA custody.

Since a swab of the lifters’ insides tested negative for drugs, Customs chief Isidro Lapeña insisted that his agency was never remiss. A word war with Aquino raged since Aug. After hearing the testimonies and seeing the evidence at the House, Lapeña acknowledged that his men were in cahoots with narco-traffickers.

During the House hearing Duterte ordered PNP chief Oscar Albayalde to arrest Guban for custody at the NBI. Gordon refused to turn over his state witness, until assured of his protection. Besides there was no arrest warrant.

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Philippine Airlines is to launch a sea ferry from Kalibo to Boracay mid-Nov., in time for the resort-island’s full reopening to tourists. Two high-speed catamarans are to take vacationists to and from Boracay in only 90 minutes, faster than the 120-minute drive. Each of the new Dutch-made craft seats 410 passengers, first, premium, or economy class. Lowest fares start at only P1,500, round trip.

Mabuhay Maritime Express general manager Edmund Cheng said passengers can book the seamless connecting ferry with their PAL or PAL Express flights. At Kalibo airport they are driven five minutes to seaside, from where they sail straight to the Boracay jetty harbor. For convenience, PAL EVP Stewart Lim added, the Kalibo runway will be extended so passengers can stroll to the port upon landing. The Boracay wharf will be expanded, with a second floor exclusively for ferry riders.

PAL chairman Lucio Tan, wife Carmen, son Michael, other family members, and PAL execs took the media, tour operators, and travel agents on a sample 90-minute voyage from MOA, Pasay to Pico de Loro, Batangas, Tuesday. Spotted were Sen. Nancy Binay, PAL president Jimmy Bautista, PAL Express president Boni Sam, VP-inflight services Bud Britanico, and spokeswoman Cielo Villaluna.

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