Customs and Traditions

(photo credit: inquirer.net)

Bureau of Customs Employee’s Association denounced the “Gestapo-style” raid conducted by the National Bureau of Investigation in their offices premises.

The NBI busted Renato Palgan, chief of the district’s X-Ray Project Team, for allegedly demanding Php50,000 bribe from a customs broker named Rose de Luna.



Commissioner Ruffy Biazon also complained about the lack of coordination between NBI agents and his office, saying there could have been a shootout because of it.

The BOCEA on the other hand, went one step further saying that the raid is tainted with illegality.

Say what? We will make no excuses for the spotty record of the country’s premier law enforcement agency and made no secret of the colorless leadership of its director. But on this count, the NBI was well within its mandate.

Furthermore, for all the bluster of the BOC’s employees and their boss, there is no law that requires coordination with a government agency when it is to be the site of a raid, even if it is one of their employees that is the subject of the said raid.

Coordination, by practice is only with the Philippine National Police, so that responding officers will not mistakenly shoot at NBI agents. There is no such practice for government agencies particularly one that is NOT clothed with the mandate to enforce bribery laws.

So what’s with all the bluster of the BOCEA?

BOCEA would protect one of its own because this sets a dangerous precedent. Not that anyone hasn’t been caught in the act yet, but doing so makes for a tougher case to defend.

When BOC personnel are on the rare instances, arrested or detained for – what else? taking bribes, NBI agents we have interviewed are pretty much unanimous in one thing.

Politicians of every size, make and model, come out of the woodwork to intercede. Then there is the parade of generals, military or police, businessmen and so on ad nauseam, all who put in their support for the customs officer.

Of course this is not unique. We see the same things quietly happen when BIR officials are detained; so with DOJ prosecutors.

So if it’s a tough case, since one is caught in the act, the parade of intercessors are less likely to be enthusiastic defending the accused.

And if it happens to one of them precedent can be easily set. Imagine if a customs official is actually convicted? The world of corruption as we know it, just might end!

By: Atty. Trixie Cruz-Angeles
(Source : PSSST! Centro)






To know more about Trixie Cruz Angeles, check out: I AM TRIXIE CRUZ