Duterte: No order for military to take over BOC personnel’s functions

FILE: President Rodrigo Roa Duterte witnesses the program proper during the inauguration of the Parañaque Integrated Terminal Exchange (PITX) in Parañaque City on November 5, 2018. TOTO LOZANO/PRESIDENTIAL PHOTO

President Rodrigo Duterte on Tuesday, November 6, clarified that he did not order the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) to take over the positions of Bureau of Customs (BOC) personnel.

“When I called in the Army to help the Bureau of Customs, there was no designation, there was no appointment and there was never an instruction for them to take over the functions of the employee,” Duterte said in a speech during his lecture on militarization and drugs in Malacañang.

Amid the P11-billion shabu (crystal meth) shipment controversy, Duterte announced at the birthday party of former Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano in October that the AFP will temporarily take over the BOC as all of the agency’s employees were placed on floating status.

In his speech, the President said it will take him 10 years if he will be investigating every BOC staff to determine who among them could be guilty of corruption.

“So ang ginawa ko (what I did) is just really to order them on floating status. But that was a particular order directed for chiefs of offices and section chiefs. Iyong mga assistant nila ang magta–trabaho (Their assistants will be the ones to work),” he stressed.

Duterte added that illegal drugs slipped past the BOC because the bureau has no “law and order.”

“It is not because they are incompetent in computations or that they could not figure out how much the country would be earning if there are no cheaters,” the Chief Executive said.

“What I am worried actually was that shabu is a problem it has been I said raised to the level of a national security threat and the pantalan (port) is a huge door there and shabu is entering the country almost everyday,” he continued.

The President then insisted that unless he is satisfied that law and order is restored in the BOC, the presence of the AFP will remain there.

Duterte earlier assigned Maritime Industry Authority (MARINA) Administrator Rey Leonardo Guerrero, former chief-of-staff of the AFP, to head the BOC, replacing Isidro Lapeña who is now the director general of Technical Education and Skills Development Authority (TESDA).

Critics had slammed the Chief Executive’s directive to put the graft-ridden bureau under military control, saying that it would violate the Constitution’s prohibition on giving civilian posts to active military personnel.

Concerns on whether the military is capable of handling the operations at the agency were also raised.

Presidential Spokesperson Salvador Panelo earlier clarified that Duterte was not appointing nor designating any member of the AFP at the BOC.

“These people will be there first to make their presence felt and hopefully intimidate those corrupt people there,” Panelo had said in a Palace briefing.

The spokesman also stressed that the military will not take over the functions of the BOC’s employees, but he said, “if it comes to a point that it is needed, the Constitution allows it.”