Cebu Customs agent tags six officials in vessel’s disappearance

CEBU CITY — A Bureau of Customs special agent has finally squealed about what he knows of the disappearance of the cargo ship Great Faith, naming at least six Customs officials as among those responsible for the incident.

The Great Faith, laden with more than 20,000 bags of smuggled rice, escaped from the Ouano wharf in Mandaue City last Christmas Eve while under Customs custody. It has never been seen since.

At a congressional inquiry into the incident here last Friday, special agent Eliseo Gealan succumbed to intense questioning and agreed to reveal the names of at least six officials in an executive session.

Gealan also named a son of an actress as the alleged owner of the smuggled rice.

Detailed with the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service, Gealan was pressured into identifying those involved after he was forced to admit, while being grilled by Leyte Rep. Ted Failon, that he knew the people behind the vessel’s disappearance.

Following orders

The agent, subjected to a barrage of questions and threatened with charges of perjury if he did not tell the truth, said he was just following orders.

Gealan, one of several security personnel assigned to monitor ships at the Ouano wharf, claimed he had been under orders not to do anything if the Great Faith left port.

"Kahibalo ko sir, pero di ko mosulti (I know something about it, sir, but I won’t say anything)," Gealan told members of the House committee on good government, which conducted the inquiry, when pressed if he knew who were involved.

At that instance, Rep. Antonio Cuenco of Cebu City moved for a 10-minute suspension of the proceedings so Gealan could name names in an executive session.

Cuenco later said Gealan named in the executive session at least six Customs officials who ordered the release of the Great Faith and its hot cargo.

The committee promised to place Gealan under the witness protection program if he agrees to become a state witness against the six officials.

Cuenco refused to reveal the places of assignment of the six Customs officials whom Gealan named.

Charges

Gealan and three other Customs agents have been recommended to face criminal and administrative charges in connection with the escape of the Great Faith.

The three other agents indicted by a panel created by the Bureau of Customs to investigate the escape of the ship were Bienvenido Caluyo, Julius Ceasar Villarin and Ernesto Echevaria.

The panel, composed of Bolivar Puno, Javier Alpano and Nemesio Magno, also recommended the filing of administrative charges against former deputy collector for assessment Santiago Maravillas, former district collector Roberto Sacramento, Rogaciano Ceniza, Ronald Pasyon and Jesus Presbitero.

Despite the recommendations, Customs Commissioner Titus Villanueva told the congressional inquiry that no formal charges have yet been filed against the officials and agents in deference to a parallel investigation by a task force created by Malacañang.

Dissatisfied by this explanation, members of the committee scolded Villanueva, saying that his failure to immediately file the charges indicates that he is trying to protect his people.

The committee said Villanueva’s actuations would lead it to conclude that he, too, is conniving with the smugglers.

"With your inaction, you are trying to protect your own people, thus, there is a suspicion of conspiracy," said Rep. Ruy Elias Lopez, who chairs the House committee.

No connivance

Villanueva, however, insisted that top Customs officials, especially in Manila, did not connive in the disappearance of Great Faith.

"Papaano merong connivance, e ako nga ang nag-order na i-forfeit yung vessel at bigas (How could there be a connivance when I personally ordered the forfeiture of the vessel and the rice cargo)?" Villanueva said.

But Cuenco believes that the "great escape" could not have happened without the connivance of Customs officials.

"I believe there’s money involved in this," the Cebuano congressman said.

Rep. Clavel Asas Martinez of Cebu also questioned the report submitted by the Bureau of Customs regarding its inquiry.

Martinez noted that nowhere in the report did the bureau ever mention about the whereabouts of the Great Faith and its cargo of 20,000 bags of smuggled rice.

"Maybe you’re just throwing us in a circle because somebody is being protected," she said. — Freeman News Service