NBI scalawags left untouched

President-elect Noynoy Aquino is right to focus first on collecting old taxes than imposing new ones. He knows that unabated smuggling is a major cause of the growing fiscal deficit. And much of the smuggling is of gasoline and diesel.

There are many ways to detect tax evaders. In Japan revenue agents covertly count the pairs of chopsticks in a restaurant’s trash bin to calculate its daily volume of diners. From that they determine how much are the daily sales — and corresponding taxes. In Europe and America they use radio-frequency ID marks to trace highly taxable sin products: cigarettes and liquor.

It can be easier with fuel smugglers. Duty-free trade now operates among the ten members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Fuel is among the no-tariff items. But there are rules under the Asean Trade in Goods Agreement. Importers truthfully must file in triplicate where the goods came from, the kind, bulk, value, and, most important, the supplier. Ironically long-time fuel smugglers are not used to legally paying no duties. Precisely because of the shady sources, they have no coherent records and receipts of sales.

This is where Customs comes in. The agency should deem as smuggled any fuel shipment that cannot identify the supplier, and has no receipt to show for it. That way it will finally end the decades of fuel smuggling and theft.

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What’s taking NBI chief Nestor Mantaring so long to stop mischief in his agency? For the second time in four months he is being told of alleged extortionate agents. Witnesses and evidence have been sent to start him digging into his men’s protection racket. Yet he has done nothing.

Last Feb. Cavite prosecutor Manny Velasco reported to Mantaring a disturbing incident. NBI agents in the province allegedly had attempted to extort P1 million from a crime suspect. The famed prosecutor particularly was concerned that his office nearly had been used for the ruse. A man nabbed for robbery and gun toting was brought in for inquest towards the close of work hours one Friday afternoon. The arresting NBI team’s late arrival was by design. To scare the suspect into paying up, the agents were making it impossible for him to post bail and so spend the weekend in jail. The man’s wife later swore they had threatened to kill him if she didn’t come up with the cash. Velasco didn’t know it then, though. What upset him was the agents’ delay despite sending word earlier that they’d be there before noon. While Velasco was scolding them, he got a call from the justice department in Manila about the wife’s frantic cries for help. The agents hurriedly left without finishing the inquest. The couple implicated NBI-Cavite head Dominador Villanueva and Special Investigator Chester Dans.

Following a hunch, Velasco reviewed the records of NBI filings. It turned out that the Cavite unit had not cracked any big case in the past two years, only cursory raids of gambling dens and unlicensed bars. Worse, Velasco learned, sloppy detective work, likely deliberate, resulted in weak cases. He told NBI-Cavite that his office would no longer accept cases from them, since they were only filing charges to extort from respondents. In turn they sued Velasco for dereliction of duty.

Came a break in May. An NBI civilian agent once assigned to Cavite, Peter Ignacio, came forward to clear his name. Presenting bank records, he swore that Villanueva had used him for half a year, May-December 2008, to launder protection money from vice lords. Ignacio gave a detailed account of the modus operandi, including their collectors and monthly take in each Cavite town. Big names were mentioned as having ordered the protection racket. Allegedly Villanueva and men raided jueteng and sakla gambling dens that failed to pay up. Too, Ignacio swore, Villanueva facilitated the issuance of all-important NBI badges to the collectors. When he tried to say goodbye to all this in January 2009, Ignacio said, Villanueva supposedly threatened to sue him for coddling vice lords. This prompted him to return to his original unit, the NBI-Manila.

Velasco sent Ignacio’s sworn affidavit to Mantaring. He followed this up with a letter on June 9 again begging for an investigation. Velasco has a stake in shielding the NBI’s reputation by flushing out scalawags. He had worked for the agency as special prosecutor on terrorism, then on forced disappearances; his dad Epimaco had served as chief in the 1990s. There has been no word though from Mantaring, who reportedly personally chose Villanueva for the Cavite post. If he truly trusts his subordinate, he should at least officially absolve him.

Meanwhile, stories abound about bitter infighting for control of protection rackets in other provinces.

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 “People who hate are disturbed. If you want to help them, lessen the source of the disturbance.” Shafts of Light, Fr. Guido Arguelles, SJ

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