Bibit: NBI being used to destroy me

CEBU — Cebu Customs collector Billy Bibit suspects that the seizure by the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) of 25 right-hand-drive luxury vehicles valued at P12 million and the allusion to his son as having facilitated their slipping through Customs was a demolition job against him by his enemies, with the NBI acting as a witting or unwitting tool.

Although his son has never been categorically linked to the controversy in any of the media reports about the NBI seizure, Bibit felt his son and namesake has been alluded to, prompting him to publicly cry foul.

"This is unfair. Bakit nila idadawit yung bata (Why should they implicate my son)?" he said.

Bibit said he even prohibits his son to come to his office during office hours out of delicadeza.

He said his son is not engaged in any brokerage business but is into buying and selling of cars.

"Nakakita ako ng (I have seen a) connection that some people do not like what we are doing," Bibit said, referring to the strict collection of duties that he has imposed, possibly annoying some businessmen.

He suspects that these businessmen were the ones who tipped off the NBI about the right-hand-drive luxury vehicles and implicated his son.

The NBI seized the 25 vehicles during a raid on the compound of couple Sulpicio and Dalisay Jao in Mandaue City last week.

Bibit said he strongly suspects that the NBI may have been used as an instrument in the demolition job hatched against him by disgruntled businessmen.

"Why? Among so many other things, is that the only thing the NBI can do? I do not discount the possibility because many businessmen have already been hurt," he said in Tagalog.

But NBI regional director Reynaldo Esmeralda merely laughed off Bibit’s claims, saying nobody can influence the NBI to carry out a demolition job.

Esmeralda said the raid was transparent, covered by a search warrant issued by the Mandaue City Municipal Trial Court.

Esmeralda said the NBI has no axe to grind against Bibit so that instead of entertaining the thought that the NBI connived with businessmen to embarrass him, Bibit should instead commend the NBI for a job well-done.

Bibit, however, insisted that he learned two weeks ago that the NBI had posted agents at the Cebu port to apprehend 30 container vans of rice which the agency eventually released without coordinating with the Customs bureau.

Bibit said it is hard to prove that the right-hand-drive luxury vehicles were smuggled through the Cebu port in the absence of any documents to show their origin.

Bibit claimed that as early as Jan. 19, the Customs bureau collected P183 million in duties, already way beyond the P165-million target collection for the month.

Bibit recalled having arrested Jao in Pasay City in 1986 and described him to be "an old-time client of the bureau" since the time of the late former President Marcos.

The Office of the Ombudsman has decided to conduct its own inquiry into the controversy, with Deputy Ombudsman Primo Miro saying it is time to unmask Customs officials involved in irregularities.

Last year, deputy Customs collector Eduardo Lao, along with a Customs examiner, was killed in an ambush suspected to be rooted in the rampant smuggling in Cebu. —Freeman News Service