Customs stinks

For almost a month now, residents and people staying in Port Area, Manila have been living with and breathing stench-filled air. The foul smell could turn your belly inside out especially for those with weak stomach.  We at The Philippine STAR are most affected because our office is located at the corner of Roberto Oca and Railroad Streets in Port Area. But the stench reaches all the way to nearby Del Pan Bridge in Intramuros area. 

When the stench first filtered out early last month, the source was traced to container vans that were seized by the Bureau of Customs for being loaded with smuggled illegal and mis-declared products. As it turned out, agricultural and meat products  in advanced state of decomposition were inside these seized vans.

So when these container vans were opened, it also released the super foul smell and carried by the wind, mixed with the humid air. Such stench so widespread could not just come from one container van.

For sure, it must have been produced by a fairly large number of container vans filled with decomposing smuggled agricultural and meat products. It’s like one huge stink bomb.

The stink reeking all over Port Area must be more disgusting at the Bureau of Customs. The agency also holds office right beside where these container vans are held in custody.

Customs commissioner Rufino “Ruffy” Biazon must have been staying too long at his air-conditioned office or he is always out of the office to notice the foul smell. Or, he has a serious case of cold or rhinitis that his nose so clogged up not to smell the stench at all right at his backyard.

The first time the foul stench oozed out, we immediately reported the matter to Customs authorities. Lawyer Marlon Agaceta, who is the chief of staff of Bureau of Customs-Port of Manila (BOC-POM) Collector Rogel Gatchalian, pointed to the container yard of the Asian Terminals Inc. (ATI), the port operator at the South Harbor, as the source .

According to Agaceta, he was informed by ATI the stench came from the container vans of smuggled agricultural and meat products in advanced stages of decomposition that were opened that day. Customs authorities confiscated these products because their importers failed to submit the required import permits as basis for payment of duties and taxes.

The imported agricultural and meat products were  frozen.  But these are perishable products that have limited shelf life. If their importers could not produce the required government permits and pay the correct duties and taxes, not to mention quarantine requirements, these products are seized in favor of the State.  If not contested, the seized products could either be sold to public auction or destroyed, especially if rotten already and no longer fit for human consumption.

However,  Agaceta said these perishable seized goods that would not be auctioned are not  immediately disposed. They have to wait for five months to let it decompose so that these products would no longer be sold in the market, he pointed out. He said the ATI was only complying with the regulations set by the Department of Agriculture (DA).

Before they are taken out of the container yard to be buried, he cited, the container vans are opened again and the contents are sprayed with enzymes. “But prior to their release, the containers would have to be opened and be subjected to an enzyme treatment,” Agaceta explained.

Agaceta promised to take remedial measures and to coordinate with the other concerned parties to address the foul smell emissions from the container yard. That was a month ago. Up to this writing, the stink remains up in the air all over Port Area.

All this time, Biazon has been busy parrying what he suspects were attempts to disgrace him before the eyes of his boss, President Benigno “Noy” Aquino III. Actually, his immediate boss is Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima, the Customs Bureau being an attached agency of the latter’s Department.

With controversies hounding him from rampant smuggling of rice and other agricultural and meat products, Biazon came under fire lately again over unchecked multi-billion peso smuggling of imported crude oil. The high incidence of smuggling has been largely blamed for the continued shortfall of Customs collections under Biazon’s watch.

Biazon only has to answer to the appointing authority who recently came to his defense over the renewed criticisms against his Customs chief.  Biazon got the Customs post in 2011 or a year after he run but lost as one of the senatorial candidates of P-Noy’s Liberal Party (LP) during the May, 2010 elections.

Speaking of P-Noy’s senatorial candidates, some of the front-running administration-backed Team PNoy have started to snipe at each other. Towards the last two weeks of the campaign period, the brewing war erupted out in the open among the Team PNoy senatorial candidates currently leading the Senate race in mock polls and surveys.

Reelectionist Sen.Loren Legarda, who has consistently topped  surveys,  minced no words in echoing suspicions the black propaganda being dished out against her lately has been coming from within the Team PNoy senatorial ticket. 

Although she did not identify who she suspects as the  culprit, or culprits, she believes they were trying to dislodge her from the top spot in the “magic 12” winning circle in the coming May 13 elections.

Running close to her in the surveys are fellow re-electionist Senators Chiz Escudero and Alan Peter Cayetano. Escudero who was our guest candidate last Wednesday night at The STAR, suspects  the same thing. While he won’t name names, Escudero says the smear drive against him are handiworks of those who want to land in the No.1 spot in the senatorial elections and who at this early stage eye the next presidential elections in 2016.

In the last May,2007 that Legarda topped the Senate race, only 200,000 votes separate her and Escudero who came in second with 18 million votes. 

These feuding senatorial candidates are trying to trace the source, or sources, of the on-going black propaganda dished out against them at this last stretch of the campaign period. These dirty tricks in politics smell as foul as the Customs stinks the air all over Port Area.