The fight vs. human trafficking gets serious

Yesterday I attended the organizational meeting of the Regional Anti-Trafficking Task Force (RICATF) chaired by Fiscal Fernando Gubalane for the creation of the local Task Forces for Trafficking in Persons. Trafficking in persons is an illegal act and is a violation of human rights and inimical to human dignity and national development. This involves the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of a person or per-sons with or without the victim's consent or knowledge.

Trafficking is happening not only in Cebu, but throughout the rest of the world and it is only in the last two years that the Philippine government took cognizant of this crime, even though Republic Act. No.9208 the law on Anti-Trafficking in Persons Act was signed in year 2003. Being a human rights issue, the United Nations (UN) has given this fight its top priority. Hence the Inter-Agency Council Against Anti-Trafficking (IACAT) was broken into the National Inter-Agency Task Force Against Trafficking (NIATFAT), which was further brought down to the local level through the creation of the Local Inter-Agency Task Force Against Trafficking (LIATFAT).

The meeting yesterday resulted in the creation of the various Task Forces (Air-port, Seaport and Land-Based) where all government agencies were assigned to watch for crime of human trafficking. My role is to help disseminate whatever important informa-tion that needs to be published or reported in the media. This is the second meeting of the RIATFAT that I've attended. But what is very encouraging here is the participation of the non-governmental organizations, like the multi-awarded Lihok Filipina or the Visayan Forum which have in their own way helped many women in their plight against human trafficking.

What is interesting in R.A. no. 9208 is that the crime or act of trafficking can bring the perpetration a 20-year jail sentence; 15 years in prison for acts that promote trafficking and the 1st offense for the use of trafficked person are 6 months in jail and a P50,000 fine. From the way I observed yesterday meetings, the various fiscals from the Department of Justice (DoJ) are prepared to prosecute anyone involved in trafficking, which is an added boost in this international campaign. We shall hear more on this issue in the very future.

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Last Thursday I read in the news that the Bureau of Customs (BoC) filed the big-gest suit against an oil company, Pilipinas Shell allegedly for technical smuggling. I really didn't take up this issue right away because I found it hard to believe that one of the top 10 taxpayers of this country would engage in smuggling! Well yesterday, Pilipi-nas Shell came up with a paid advertisement in The Philippine Star explaining their side of the story.

One issue is that Shell failed to pay its excise taxes from year 2005-2009, but it turns out that the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) already issued a directive to the Bu-reau of Customs not to assess Shell excise taxes because Catalytic Cracked Gasoline (CCG) and Light Catalytic Cracked Gasoline (LCCG) are not subject to excise taxes, since these are not considered final products, but raw materials used in the refinery to produce Clean Air Act compliant petroleum products. The one-page advertisement was entitled "Who is misdeclaring the facts?

Truth to tell, we shouldn't even be siding with Pilipinas Shell because we're still sore at them for not helping us Cebuanos reduce our pump prices of fuel here which is higher by an average of P7 per liter. But fair is fair! If Shell did not misdeclare anything, why then is Bureau of Customs (BoC) chief Angelito Alvarez making a huge issue on this problem, which by the way is still to be decided in the Court of Tax Appeal?

I do not know what is the hidden agenda of the BoC Chief, but let me just remind you that he has tasked one of the country's top ten biggest taxpayers and tagged Shell as a smuggler. If this is what is happening to big business under the Aquino administration, then we can expect more problems to crop up. Just a few months ago, we objected to Mr. Alvarez's appointment to the BoC because he cheated on his golf scores during last Janu-ary's Mango Tee Golf Tournament in Ayala Alabang, which earned him a disqualifica-tion from the tournament and more embarrassingly, a six-month suspension from this prestigious golf club.

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Today is the 66th anniversary of the invasion of Leyte, when the late Gen. Doug-las MacArthur fulfilled his famous promise "I Shall Return" which kept the hopes of Filipinos under the brutal Japanese occupation high. Three years later, Gen. MacArthur kept his promise in the shores of Palo, Leyte.