Customs chief of Manila port flunks lifestyle check

The Revenue Integrity Protection Service (RIPS) of the Department of Finance filed graft charges yesterday at the Office of the Ombudsman against the chief of the Bureau of Customs at the Manila International Container Port for alleged unexplained wealth.

Athena Dans, chief Customs operations officer of the MICP’s Informal Entry Division, is accused of violating Section 2 of Republic Act 3019, the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act, and a complaint of perjury for misdeclaring her statements of assets, liabilities and net worth (SALN).

According to the RIPS, Dans, who has been working at the Bureau of Customs since 1990, had managed to increase her net worth from P261,000 in 1990 to P20 million in 2005.

RIPS said that despite her latest gross annual salary of only P250,000, Dans also acquired a Mitsubishi Lancer sedan worth P550,000, a Toyota Innova van, a Mitsubishi Adventure, a Hyundai Starex, an Isuzu Crosswind, a Nissan Frontier pickup, an Isuzu Hi-Lander, a Suzuki Carry and a Honda motorcycle.

Probers said Dans did not include in her SALN the Crosswind, Isuzu Hi-Lander, Suzuki Carry and the Honda motorcycle.

Investigators said records from the Land Transportation Office showed that the undeclared vehicles were registered in the names of Athena C. Dans and her husband Alvin G. Dans.

Dans also bought several real estate properties, including a resort in Quezon which she had declared as agricultural land in her 2003 SALN. The resort, including improvements, is now worth at least P15 million.

The DOF-RIPS said Dans and her husband Alvin, a lawyer in Basilan, had traveled at least 16 times to the United States, Japan and France.

Probers said when Dans joined the BOC in 1990, she and her husband only declared a combined net worth of only P261,000. She also declared only two properties in Makati and Basilan and stated that she has no savings in the bank.

In addition to the complaint, the DOF-RIPS also asked the Office of the Ombudsman to place Dans under preventive suspension without pay for six months while the probe on her alleged unexplained wealth is ongoing.

The DOF-RIPS said even with the combined income of Dans and her husband, they could not afford to purchase the expensive vehicles and real estate properties considering that they also have four children to send to school.

"That respondent’s brazen accumulation of wealth in the aggregate amount of P20,000,000, more or less, is clearly disproportionate to her means, is further underscored by the fact that respondent did not even include her ordinary family expenditures — including tuition fees of respondent’s children — which judging by respondent’s standard of living, could not be less than substantial. Stated otherwise, and assuming that ordinary family expenses usually account for 60 percent of earnings, respondent would have precious little money, if any, to put away, let alone to spend on luxurious foreign travels, expensive vehicles and real estate investments," the DOF-RIPS said in its 10-page complaint.