NOT all greens must go—they might be stuffed with shabu; it’s not our porous borders either. It’s about our border control managers.
In traffic, all greens must go—except when doing so will likely hit a bystander, a vehicle, a traffic officer or anything that stands in the way of the green lane.
“It’s almost similar with the customs selectivity scheme in customs operation. A shipment tagged as green gets a virtually free clearing procedure; while yellow will require documentation check; and, red—actual physical inspection,” said lawyer and former Customs Bureau Director Ramon Cuyco in an interview.
“But the smugglers, especially those specializing in bringing in antisocial goods, know better—they will not stuff their hot items into shipments that are likely to be tagged as ‘red’ by the customs bureau selectivity mechanism. In other words, they’ll make sure that their shipments will not elicit or invite unnecessary attention from the border control officers manning our ports. And there are many ways to do this,” Cuyco said.
For example, sometime in May 2017, the shabu-in-cylinders were cleared through the Manila International Container Port (MICP). Stuffed in steel cylinders used in printing operation, the crystal meth were believed to be street valued at around P6.4 billion.
These cylinders were tagged with a “GREEN” selectivity mode, hence, no inspection was necessary, and in fact, none was ever done.
This cost the job of Customs Chief Nick Faeldon, who was relieved of his customs post and was transferred to the Office of the Civil Defense of the defense department. Faeldon was barely a year in office then.
In almost a year after, Gen. Sid Lapeña also lost his customs assignment because he reportedly bungled the P11-billion “magnetic shabu” when this shipment of crystal meth stuffed in construction magnetic lifters was assigned to a low-ranked intelligence officer who tripped along the way as he shepherded the clearing process of this meth shipment. The P11-billion shipments entered by way of consignee-for-hire; and, so, no way of checking who the real importer was. This slipped past the MICT too.
In April 2019, P1 billion worth of tapioca was declared but turned out to be meth. It was cleared, again, through the country’s biggest international container port—the MICT.
If curiosity still bears significance, the P6.4-billion shabu-in-cylinders, the P11-billion meth-in-magnetic lifters, and the P1-billion shabu-in-tapioca were all cleared through the country’s most sophisticated containerized port run by professionals and operated by highly regarded businessmen in the country.
Lately, the 641 missing containers were reportedly shuttled or shuffled between the country’s premier collection district—the POM, and the country’s premier economic free port—the SBFEZ, at the former US military facility in Subic, Zambales.
We used to justify lapses in border control to our country’s porous borders.
Indeed, the Philippines has the fifth longest coastlines in the world, with 36,289 kilometers, next only to Canada’s 202,080 kilometers.
Attributing the country’s inadequacy to its porous borders appears plausible. Human trafficking in the southern backdoor may be a problem, especially in places where Indonesians look more Filipino than some Filipinos, or where some Filipinos are endowed with more Indonesian features than real Indonesians. But not necessarily so in the field of inter-trade or commercial transactions.
A deeper understanding of how things have been shaping up lately will tell us that smuggling is not done in unmanned territories—they are entered and cleared through our sophisticated ports.
And these are done in various ways, modes that are unknown to port authorities—they tag the shipments as GREEN, which means no inspection need to be done; or, they resort to fictitious consignees—the way the missing 2,000 containers were brought in; or, they assign a low-ranking officer to husband a big deal such that he can become readily expendable when things go wrong; or, blatantly misdeclare shipments and let PR divert attention to the spike in volume, albeit no corresponding hike in collection. And, there are many more ways up in their sleeves—be they careermen, technocrats, businessmen or military men in customs.
“Beneath all these high-profile smuggling cases, the unreliability of our importers registry is at the core of the problem,” Port & Freeports Trade and Security analyst lawyer Ramon Cuyco said.
“Unless you reboot your Importers Registry, and adopt a Merit and Demerit System that will make importers’ classification dynamic, coupled with a periodic revision of red flags that shall influence the selectivity mechanism, sneaking in and clearing out of antisocial goods, as well as undeclared, misdeclared and under-valued commodities will continue to be done not through our porous borders but through the noses of our border control managers,” Cuyco said.
Safe trade through our ports? Tall order!
There’s nothing new in modus, just new faces copying old ways and making millions or billions of pesos in evil money. The question is, how can they live with their conscience?
To reach the writer, e-mail cecilio.arillo@gmail.com.
1 comment
The simple truth about binary options which many of us do not know is the fact that it is mainly based on predictions. Without proper knowledge of what next can happen to the stock market, you are sure to lose your funds. That is why it is important to be tutored or mentored by a professional trader in binary options. During the few days of being mentored by Mrs Doris Ashley I’ve learnt much and also succeeding in trades and have been doing successful withdrawals and was able to recover all my lost funds. Feel free to contact her on Dorisashley52@gmail. com or whatsapp her +1 (516) 494 0313.for positive results