BOC under military control ‘illegal, unconstitutional’ — La Viña

FILE: Former dean of the Ateneo School of Government, Atty. Tony La Viña. (Photo: Tony La Viña/Facebook)

A law expert on Monday, October 29, said President Rodrigo Duterte’s order to the military to take over the operations of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) is “illegal” and “unconstitutional.”

“Malinaw na iligal, malinaw na unconstitutional, isang impeachable [offense] ‘yung ginagawa ni Pangulo dito kasi talagang culpable violation of the Constitution (It is clear that it is illegal, it is clear that it is unconstitutional, because what the President did was an impeachable offense because it is a culpable violation of the Constitution),” lawyer Antonio “Tony” La Viña said in an interview with Bandila sa DZMM.

“Una (First), civilian authority should always be superior to military authority. Pangalawa (Second), no soldier or official currently in service should be appointed or designated in any capacity to any civilian post. Malinaw ‘yung dalawang ‘yon (Those two things are clear). Pangatlo (Third), you cannot just kumbaga aalisin sa pwesto ‘yung mga (remove) civilian officials either we have due process or without a law,” he added.

The former dean of the Ateneo School of Government said this after Duterte last Sunday announced in a speech at the birthday party of former Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano that the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) will temporarily take over the BOC, amid the P11-billion shabu (crystal meth) shipment controversy.

While all of the agency’s employees are placed on “floating status,” Duterte moved BOC’s former chief, Isidro Lapeña, to head the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA).

Lapeña was replaced by Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA) Administrator Rey Leonardo Guerrero, former chief-of-staff of the AFP.

La Viña stressed that military officials or retired military officials were appointed at the BOC many times already, but the corruption allegations at the agency were not addressed.

“It never worked. Una, kahit may integridad ‘yung iba hindi nila kaya ‘yung trabaho dahil napaka-technical. One week matututo sila? No way. One year hindi sila matututo [kasi] that’s a very technical work (First, even though some of them have integrity, they are incapable of doing the work because it is very technical. They will learn in one week? No way. They won’t even learn in one year because that’s a very technical work),” the lawyer said.

“Magsu-suffer ‘yung ekonomiya na ‘yan, magsu-suffer ‘yung lahat ng businesses na nag-i-import ng mga goods, magpo-port congestion tayo dahil diyan (The economy will suffer, all businesses that import goods will suffer, we will have port congestion because of that),” he continued.

Malacañang, through Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo, earlier expressed its confidence that the military will only be needing a week to learn the “ropes” in the BOC, noting that it did not take months for Lapeña and his predecessor, Nicanor Faeldon to learn how the agency should be run.

“As we all know, the members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines are not limited to military work, there are a lot of them, who have taken graduate schools, scholarship with respect to some technical know-how. And certainly, they will also be undergoing training to be competent in the field that they would be assigned to,” Panelo said.

Before La Viña, several lawmakers like Senators Francis Pangilinan, Risa Hontiveros, and Leila de Lima, among others, have slammed the President’s decision to put the BOC temporarily under military control.

Questioning the legality of Duterte’s move, Pangilinan said, “What does AFP know about collecting taxes and tariffs? The bureaucracy is becoming militarized. What’s next? BIR (Bureau of Internal Revenue)? Immigration? Not all military officials are effective managers like inept Capt. Faeldon and Gen. Lapeña of BoC and Jason Aquino of NFA (National Food Authority).”

Hontiveros, meanwhile, said that the President should give the military the respect it deserves and stop treating them as his personal troubleshooting department.

“He should leave the military out of unconstitutional exercises. His order is not a demonstration of political will, it is a pathetic display of weak leadership,” she said.

Moreover, de Lima called such move as another one of Duterte’s “populist moves designed to appeal to the prevailing frustration of the people with his own anemic response to the smuggling of billions of pesos of shabu.”

She added that putting members of the AFP to every crisis in the civilian bureaucracy is “governance by gimmickry.”