Conspiracy in ship’s escape leads to the top?

CEBU CITY — The alleged conspiracy among Customs officials to allow the escape of a cargo ship laden with smuggled rice while under their custody goes all the way to the top.

Rep. Nerissa Soon Ruiz, who was present in Friday’s congressional inquiry into the escape of the ship Great Faith, said one of the six Customs officials implicated in the incident holds a national position in the bureau.

A Customs special agent, Ely Gealan, named the six officials during an executive session of the House committee on good government which conducted the inquiry here.

Gealan tagged the six officials as having ordered the escape of the Great Faith last Christmas Eve from the Ouano wharf where it had been under tight guard.

In an interview with radio station dyLA, Ruiz, bound by the rules of confidentiality that attend executive sessions, refused to name the national Customs official or the other five whom Gealan had implicated.

Gealan told the House panel that the six officials told him and other Customs agents not to do anything once the ship, with more than 20,000 bags of smuggled rice on board, left the Ouano wharf.

Gealan said there were private individuals tasked by the officials to process and put certain documents in order prior to the sudden departure of the vessel.

Ruiz, however, feels that Gealan has not told everything he knew about the incident.

Ruiz and Rep. Raul del Mar, another member of the House committee, agreed that the information which Gealan provided merely gave them leads and that it was not damaging enough to jeopardize his security.

Both legislators said Gealan, at this stage, may not yet be taken into the government’s witness protection program or be considered as a possible state witness.

Gealan himself is among several Customs agents who have been recommended for criminal and administrative charges following an in-house Customs inquiry.

Customs Commissioner Titus Villanueva incurred the ire of the House committee members when he told them that no charges have yet been filed against any of the officials and other Customs personnel named in an investigation report submitted to him last month.

The panel did not like the impression that Villanueva was sitting on the case, and would hear none of his explanations that he did not want to preempt the results of a parallel investigation by a task force created by Malacañang.

Ruiz said it was evident in the hearing that the Bureau of Customs had been lenient in securing the Great Faith and its shipment.

Another Cebuano member of the committee, Rep. Clavel Asas Martinez, said she regards the absence of former Customs collector Roberto Sacramento in the hearing as suggesting his possible involvement in the incident.

Sacramento will be asked to explain his failure to attend Friday’s hearing and will be subpoenaed for the next round of the congressional inquiry. — Freeman News Service