Powers of Cebu Customs head clipped

CEBU CITY — Customs Commissioner Titus Villanueva stripped the Cebu district collector the other day of the authority to release seized items being held by the bureau.

Villanueva issued this directive following the disappearance of MV Great Faith which was carrying 20,000 sacks of rice, and another 15,000 sacks of rice on board the MV Panda.

The order came a day after President Arroyo ordered the relief of the two top Customs officials in Cebu due to the disappearance of Great Faith and the 35,000 sacks of rice.

Villanueva flew to Cebu the other day to serve the relief orders to Customs district collector Roberto Sacramento and deputy collector Santiago Maravillas and to relay his new directive to the new Cebu Customs district collector, Juan Tan.

Villanueva, in his order, said the Cebu Customs office cannot release any apprehended goods, especially rice, without clearance from him.

Inventory

Tan, for his part, said all seized goods, including rice, will be inventoried to determine whether they are still intact, lost entirely or portions of which have been pilfered.

Villanueva directed Tan to submit the inventory of all of the seized items to the bureau by Friday.

Villanueva also ordered Tan to:

• Issue warrants of seizure and detention to all apprehended items deserving such warrants; and

• Transfer all seized smuggled rice to the warehouse of the National Food Authority.

Maravillas and Sacramento were both transferred to the bureau’s human resource and management division in Manila.

Maravillas, however, described his relief as "unfair and unjust."

"They cannot use the disappearance of the MV Great Faith and the missing rice on board MV Panda as the basis for my relief," Maravillas told The Freeman.

Maravillas said he was the one who apprehended the Great Faith and stopped the release of the 20,000 sacks of smuggled rice the vessel was carrying.

Sacramento was the one who ordered the release of the rice shipment last Oct. 26. Sacramento could not be reached for comment.

No clean slate

Tan himself, however, was not spared from controversies in the past.

Tan, 51, was Cebu’s Customs district collector for four months in 1999.

Like Sacramento and Maravillas, Tan was relieved for releasing the ship MV Martha and its cargo of 10,000 sacks of smuggled rice in May 1999.

It was during Tan’s term that another ship, MV Ranger, loaded with 40,000 sacks of smuggled sugar from Cagayan de Oro, disappeared on Good Friday.

MV Ranger, according to Glenn Cabanez, regional director of the Maritime Industry Authority, was the same vessel which Customs personnel seized with 44,000 sacks of smuggled rice last year.

MV Ranger was renamed MV Brighton when it was apprehended last year.

Maravillas was replaced by Maximo Reyes, the acting district collector of the Port of Legazpi in Albay.

Finance Secretary Jose Isidro Camacho clarified that the relief orders for Sacramento and Maravillas were based on the preliminary findings of the fact-finding committee tasked to investigate the disappearance of the Great Faith last Dec. 25.

Investigation

Camacho, in an interview with radio station dyLA, said the relief of Sacramento and Maravillas does not mean an end to the investigation into the missing ship and rice shipments.

Camacho said the probe will determine the liability of the Customs officials and will come up with recommendations whether to file charges against them for negligence or involvement in smuggling activities or not.

For his part, Gov. Pablo Garcia supported the President’s order to sack Sacramento and Maravillas.

Garcia said the President did the right thing, adding that irregularities at the Cebu Customs office appeared to have gotten out of hand.

Meanwhile, police regional director Avelino Razon Jr. dismissed speculations that there are politicians involved in rice smuggling.

Razon said he based his assessment on the watchlist of the Region 7 police. — Freeman News Service