One of the reforms instituted was enforcement of a decision by the Supreme Court that was handed down in October ordering that the examination of laden vans be conducted only in the designated area of the Philippine Ports Authority (PPA) instead of a local private container yard.
Former journalist and Davao City councilor Antonio Vergara pointed out that Port of Davao customs collector Anju Castigador’s critics have escalated a campaign to oust the latter after implementation of reforms instituted by Castigador, including moving the customs operations out of a private container yard.
After the transfer of the customs operations to the PPA-designated area, the agency exceeded its quota of P3,469,732,000 for 2010, with a collection performance of P3,569,997,193.
“The Port of Davao under the watch of Castigador delivered P726 million more than the 2009 performance of his predecessor. The Port of Davao’s January 2011 collection of P376,926,791 again exceeded its target of P330 million by P46,926,791,” Vergara said.
Among the reforms instituted by Castigador was implementing the order of then-customs commissioner Napoleon Morales rescinding the memorandum of agreement the Bureau of Customs (BOC) had with Businessman Rodolfo Reta for the free use a small portion of the latter’s Aquarius Container Yard. The case reached the SC where the private yard lost.
Morales ordered the BOC’s Davao office to stop using Reta’s premises on February 26, 2010, when the yard’s private security guards barred customs examiners from entering the premises to institute seizure proceedings on 40 vans of rice consigned to Rapzel Interprises.
The shipment was misdeclared as construction materials and was earlier placed on alert status bythe BOC x-ray division and by Castigador.
Vergara said, “The corruption issue leveled against collector Anju Castigador are a compendium of lies and distortion of facts.”
“The poor guy is being pilloried by the lawyer of the owner of Aquarius Container Yard, where the examination of imported shipments was previously done,” Vergara said, noting that a new group who pretends to be anticorruption crusaders was organized to ventilate the issue in public for focusing mainly on the BOC to oust Castigador.
