Only Noy can decide on Biazon’s fate at Customs – Palace

MANILA, Philippines - Only President Aquino can decide the fate of Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon amid a proposal to appoint outgoing Senator Panfilo Lacson as czar against oil smuggling.

Deputy presidential spokesperson Abigail Valte said yesterday it would be best to wait for any response from Aquino on the proposal of former senator Jamby Madrigal.

Valte also said the call of Madrigal would have to be studied because normally, Aquino would not favor duplication of functions among departments or agencies.

“If there is an agency that is doing the job and that is its mandate, it stays there. If the President sees the need for another agency or another body to do it, then he creates that body,” Valte said over radio dzRB.

“But as much as possible, the rule of thumb, at least for this administration, is to keep the functions to the agency that is actually performing them…(But) early on, the President had ordered the abolition of some commissions under the Office of the President because after an evaluation, their functions turned out to be redundant with already existing agencies, bureaus or units,” she added.

Lacson, who is credited for cleaning up the Philippine National Police when he headed the agency in the Estrada administration, is about to wind up his second consecutive term as senator.

Aquino and Lacson have both confirmed that a job in the executive branch is waiting for the senator after his term ends in June.

Reports said that massive smuggling of petroleum products into the country had been continuing and robbing the government of at least P30 billion in revenues annually.

And sources have said changes in the Cabinet would likely take place after the elections, but the departments and agencies to be affected are not clear yet.

On Thursday, the Palace said it would be up to Biazon to decide whether he should resign from his post. But Biazon said he was not quitting even if there is a concerted effort to discredit him.

Presidential spokesman Edwin Lacierda said in a press briefing it would be up to Biazon to name names if he confirmed there was conspiracy between government officials and smugglers and if there were groups out to get him.

“Number one, the investigation should proceed…I am certain that Commissioner Biazon, if he has identities of those people who are in connivance, government officials who are in connivance as well as the smugglers themselves, he is conducting an investigation,” Lacierda said.