Aide of Customs chief certified pork smuggler

Last August’s importer of banned diseased pork from China was certified only two months prior – by an aide of Customs chief Napoleon Morales. In showing this, numbered forms of the Customs bureau link more men at the boss’ office to the illegal arrival and subsequent theft of the cargo.

The importer, Asia Golden Ark Marketing Center Inc., is fictitious and cannot be found at its given business address. Yet Morales’s chief of staff claims in a letter that they have sued the owners for smuggling. He did not specify who they are, where they were located, and which court is handling the case.

Records state that the Customs Accreditation Secretariat approved the application of Asia Golden on June 20, 2006, under CASRIM No. 0318706-06. Atty. Reynaldo V. Umali signed the numbered certificate as CAS executive director and concurrent legal services head.

Morales upon assuming office early this year assigned Umali to take over importers’ licensing. The task used to be with the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service, a unit under Celso Templo as deputy commissioner for enforcement.

It was unclear why Morales transferred the accreditation power to Umali as legal services head. Upon becoming Customs chief, Morales also formed Task Force Anti-Smuggling under another aide, Atty. Alexander Arcilla. Templo also used to head anti-smuggling operations, but was rendered redundant by the shuffle.

Investigators of Asia Golden’s smuggling of four 40-footer container vans of Chinese pork are wondering how it got past what used to be rigid screening before accreditation. A check by finance department officials showed that the company did not pay income or corporate taxes in 2004 and 2005. Yet its Customs accreditation form states its Tax Identification Number as 211-549-839-000.

Asia Golden’s accreditation is valid for a year through June 2007. Customs sources said this is not the first time it got a certification to import. It was holding such form early this year when it attempted to sneak in banned eggs from China.

The Philippines prohibits the entry of unprocessed poultry and meat from China because of unchecked bird flu and foot-and-mouth disease. Local growers also complain that Asia Golden has secured Customs accreditation to import Chinese onions and vegetables.

An estimated 100,000 kilos of pork, worth P6 million, arrived on Aug. 25 at the Port of Manila with Asia Golden as consignee and SM Estrada as accredited broker. Quarantine veterinarians of the Agriculture department inventoried the contraband on Sept. 1 and pasted numbered seals on the van doors, whereupon the Customs collector for Manila dispatched these for storage at the Sigma Seven Warehouse at the Manila harbor.

Morales’s manager for cargo disposal drafted a detailed plan to bury the meat in Pampanga. The Manila collector endorsed it, and Morales set the dumping for Nov. 7. By then word was spreading that the numbered seals had been replaced. When the veterinarians requested final inspection, Sigma’s general manager barred their entry, and Customs officials suddenly postponed the dumping first to Nov. 8 and then to Nov. 9.

The burial was never carried out because there was no dumpsite and the local officials disallowed it. The quarantine vets, escorted by Customs guards to Pampanga, grew suspicious and threw the vans’ doors open. It was then that they discovered that only a tenth of the original confiscated cargo was left.

On orders of Templo, the Customs guards brought the remains back to Manila as evidence of a heist. Templo also requested the NBI to investigate. Morales in turn ordered the guards grilled by a special committee composed of his aide Arcilla and Attys. Rolando Tacub and Roberto Francis Marcon.

It turned out later that Sigma is a special private warehouse directly under Morales’s office. His chief of staff, Atty. James Enriquez, is stated in a memo as operational supervisor of the warehouse, all of whose 1,200 square meters of prime space are assigned to the Customs chief for free.

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Following is the letter from Enriquez, Morales’s chief of staff, edited only for brevity and the paragraphs numbered for reference:

"(1) We refer to your column on alleged anomalous manner by which Customs disposed of seized frozen meat from China. We assure the public that Customs is giving the matter its utmost attention. Public health and safety is of paramount importance. Criminal charges have been filed with the Department of Justice against Golden Ark Marketing (importer), SM Estrada (Customs broker), and the corporate officers, under the Tariff and Customs Code of the Philippines (TCCP), for mis-declaring the shipment.

"(2) Customs is also concerned about allegations that parts of the shipment were pilfered when the shipment was already ordered to be disposed. On Nov. 15 the Office of the Commissioner formed a special committee to investigate the matter headed by Attys. Marcon, Tacub and Arcilla. The committee is investigating the matter with the objective of identifying the specific Customs units who were remiss in their duties. We guarantee to the public that the committee will conduct a fair and speedy investigation; and if allegations of pilferage are confirmed, we shall not hesitate to file charges against the concerned individuals and assist in their prosecution in accordance with the law.

"(3) In your column last Nov. 29, you questioned the propriety of incinerating the subject shipment by Customs. We reiterate that a ban on all frozen meat and poultry originating from China is currently in effect. The District Collector recommended the destruction of the shipment in view of this ban. The shipment originally was to be buried in an authorized landfill in Sta. Rita, Pampanga. However, this was not accomplished due to objections by local officials. When the subject shipment was returned to Manila, the frozen meat was already in a deteriorating state due to prolonged transshipment. As the rotten shipment increased the gravity of public health and safety risks, Customs acted swiftly and ordered its incineration. We wish to reaffirm that the incineration was required by the exigency of the situation and undertaken in accordance with the TCCP and other pertinent laws and regulations.

"(4) We are now working closely with the Department of Agriculture on how to tighten the watch on agricultural imports especially in the wake of the Christmas season. Commissioner Morales shall also be convening the members of the Task Force on Anti-Smuggling (TFAS), which I now head to strengthen our inter-agency coordination.

"(5) Rest assured that we shall constantly update you and the public on the results of our investigation and next measures Customs shall undertake to assure that public safety and interest are protected."

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Items were left unsaid or wrongly said by Enriquez. In Paragraph 2, for instance, he claimed that Morales ordered a probe of the pilferage. Not true. Morales’s Special Order No. 54-2006, dated Nov. 14, directed Marcon, Tacub and Arcilla "to investigate the alleged interference of Customs police personnel by allegedly forcibly bringing" the four vans back to Manila.

The wording is clearly not for the theft but for the return of the cargo to Manila by the Customs guards. Templo told The STAR he has written a memo to Morales explaining that it was he who told the guards to escort the shipment back. This was right after they and the quarantine vets confirmed the theft. "If there’s anyone to investigate, it should be me," Templo asserted as command responsibility. A report by Sr. Supt. Leonardo Espina, Pampanga police chief, states that the guards in fact escorted the shipment back to Manila when the Pampanga mayors stopped the dumping. There was no mention of interference or force.

To clarify Paragraph 3, it was not I who questioned the propriety of the incineration. The NBI investigators were the ones quoted in news items as saying the evidence of the heist was destroyed in the burning, which supposedly was ordered by higher-ups of Morales. Fortunately, ten days after the torching, the police recovered the stolen bulk of the contraband in a cold storage also in Pampanga.

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