Why this warehouser defies Customs men

Doctors acknowledge that drugs alone cannot heal. Power of prayer matters, along with the patient’s will to overcome debilitation. Problem is, how to pray aside from mumbling from memory, and to draw will from mind and body. Tetada Kalimasada, an ancient Indonesian healing (and martial) art, teaches newcomers from any religion the steps to go into meditative communication with God, and to muster inner strength.

Those who are tired of dependence on expensive medicines may get more info from the masters. Kalimasada practitioners will hold their first-ever annual congregation outside Indonesia – at La Mesa Dam EcoPark in Quezon City tomorrow starting at 2 p.m. While the Latihan learning assembly is meant mainly for members to hone their inner energy for self-healing, spectators will be taught proper breathing and basic exercises.

Some may have seen on television lately how Kalimasada students "energize" light bulbs and fluorescent tube so that these don’t shatter when dropped or stepped on. That’s not magic or supernatural – but proof that inner energy can be harnessed and made to do the seemingly impossible.

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No wonder managers of Sigma Seven Warehouse defied government men who wanted to inspect the four container vans of smuggled pork. They may be operating a private depot, but they report only to the Customs chief and are answerable to no one but him. That is so stated in Sigma’s abnormal designation by Customs boss Napoleon Morales. And it can only be the root for Sigma’s insolence in hiding the theft and resale of the diseased meat from China (see Gotcha, 29 Nov. 2006).

Quarantine veterinarians had inventoried the contraband – 100,000 kilos worth P6 million – and sealed the four vans on Sept. 1, a week after arrival. Customs ordered immediate storage in Sigma’s warehouse at the Harbor Center, Manila. Formal confiscation came on Sept. 15. And on Oct. 27 the Customs auction and cargo disposal unit drafted the details of the destruction by burial, which the Port of Manila collector recommended to Morales.

Since burial was set for the afternoon of Nov. 7, the chief veterinarian requested entry to Sigma’s plant in the morning for routine last inspection. The request was denied without explanation, and Customs abruptly reset the dumping for the next day and then to Nov. 9. Again permission to enter and inspect was sought, this time with Customs guards escorting. Sigma’s general manager said no, despite being told that the four numbered seals on the vans had been replaced. The Customs cops soothed the vet by promising to try to inspect once the vans were opened for dumping at a Pampanga site.

As it turned out, the cargo was never buried for there was no ready site to begin with, contrary to the written plan and collector’s endorsement. The vet and Customs guards literally were taken for a ride to a compound whose owner falsely claimed as the actual dump. Growing suspicious, they threw open the van doors and discovered that only less than a tenth of the spoiled pork was left. The bulk clearly was stolen while in Sigma’s custody.

When the guards returned to Manila with the remnant meat as proof of theft, Morales ordered them grilled by a special committee of close aides. He then had the evidence incinerated despite an ongoing NBI investigation. On Tuesday policemen found the stolen bulk in a cold storage in Pampanga. The owner is being questioned, but authorities shouldn’t stop there.

A lead is Morales’s Special Order 29-2006 designating the Sigma depot at the Manila harbor "a special Customs area under" his office. The two-page paper is unprecedented. Its contents can fill in the gaps in the NBI probe.

Provision 1 puts the Sigma facility under Morales’s direct supervision, "attention: chief of staff." This chief of staff, Atty. James Enriquez, has a lot of explaining to do for himself and his boss about four 40-footer vans of frozen pork, in five-kilo packs and 25-kilo crates, sneaking past them.

Provision 2 identifies only seized and abandoned cargo for storage at Sigma, giving it virtual exclusivity. Stranger still, Provision 3 blocks off the entire 1,200 square meters of prime space at the Manila harbor as rent-free because of Sigma’s supposed "social responsibility." This is unparalleled in government contracting. Awards givers should perhaps consider Sigma’s owner and Morales for medals of...

But wait. Provision 4 lets Sigma after all exact unspecified "reasonable fees for the use of its facility ... for transport, inventory, custody, marketing, auction and disposal." Provision 5 quickly adds that fees shall be charged to the owners of the seized or abandoned cargo. In this case, will Sigma send a bill to the pork smuggling Asia Golden Ark Marketing and/or its broker SM Estrada for the custody of the four vans? And will Sigma offer a discount because 90 percent of the illegal items was stolen and resold?

Provision 6 requires that no items may be released from Sigma storage without written orders from Customs. Aha, so there could be a paper trail after all of the missing meat, and perhaps even of the replaced quarantine seals.

Provision 7 sets a 30-day deadline, from delivery, for stored cargo to be auctioned or disposed of, like burial for the Chinese pork contaminated with foot-and-mouth disease. Yet in that case, the dumping was set for Nov. 9, seventy days after the four vans were inventoried, sealed and sent off to the Sigma plant on Sept. 1. Both the warehouser and Morales’ chief of staff must explain the delay.

Provision 8 sets a 30-day period of notice in case Sigma wishes to withdraw from its social responsibility of providing the rent-free depot. But Provision 9 requires it to put up an unspecified cash bond for the privilege of being such a rent-free space. Wow!

Lastly, and most tellingly, "access to the facility shall be limited to Customs officials that have express written authorization from" Morales. Can you beat that? The Sigma warehouse, from where tons of smuggled pork disappeared, was for the eyes only of Morales and aides.

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Tomorrow and Sunday the Professional Regulations Commission will hold the second of 2006’s nursing licensure exams. Since the fraudulent leak of questionnaires in the exams of June has not yet been plugged, it’s only natural for the public to doubt if the PRC can hold a clean event. Pampanga Rep. Francis Nepomuceno, chair of the House committee on civil service, is pleading with the agency to preserve the integrity of the nursing board. His words are bound to fall on deaf ears. The PRC board adamantly had refused to resign after being exposed for attempted whitewash of the leakage and then re-computing the grades contrary to law.

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