Customs enforcement
NATIONAL security and public order are essential elements in building the foundation for “inclusive growth, a high-trust society and a globally competitive knowledge economy”, the 2017-2022 Philippine Development Plan states.
“That is why the government must upgrade the capability of law enforcers to drastically reduce criminality, terrorism and ensure the safety and security of all people in the country,” said lawyer Ramon Cuyco, a trade security expert and retired Bureau of Customs official.
Cuyco said President Duterte, in his second State of the Nation Address, emphasized that the war on drugs shall be unrelenting. He said, “The problem on illegal drugs needs a holistic approach because illegal drugs is prevalent in the country with around 4 million drug users and 47 percent of barangays throughout the country being drug affected [PDEA, 2016]. Three illegal transnational drug groups of African, Chinese and Mexican Sinaloa origin are operating in the country and have greatly aggravated the drug problem.”
According to him, the country’s growing illegal-drugs problem, in particular, needs a determined and proactive solution. “Successive researches and pertinent crime statistics in the Philippines show a strong and direct correlation between crimes, especially serious or violent ones, and drug abuse. Any serious campaign to fight crime should, therefore, also involve a resolute crusade to stamp out drug abuse. This is a tough challenge.”
As it is, the Philippines may either be an origin, a transit point, a destination or a combination thereof. Her intelligence community states that the country is all of the above—origin-transit-destination. And because we are archipelagic, ingress and egress of illicit drugs are coursed through her ports and airports. This is where her vulnerabilities are most felt.
Customs enforcement
Who is going to watch aircraft and seacraft is a task reposed on the Customs-Immigration-Quarantine security agencies and, together, they constitute what is called “the boarding party”.
Unfortunately, the unmolested entry of the P6.4 billion worth of illegal drugs on May 26, among the many that were allegedly undetected, puts serious doubt on the capability of the country’s border control management.
Quizzed by the Senate on July 31, former Customs Chief Nicanor E. Faeldon admitted, “[T]he flow of illegal drugs through the country’s seaports could not be contained as the current x-ray system of the Bureau of Customs is capable of handling only 16 percent of all imports arriving in the country through the Manila International Container Port.”
Faeldon told the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee probers “the chance of shabu being smuggled into the country is 84 percent with the limitation of the x-ray system.” As if to stress the helplessness of the country’s border controls, Faeldon “warned senators that another 500 kilos of shabu are expected to be unloaded in the Philippines that we cannot detect.”
If manifestly antisocial goods could be entered into the Customs territory undetected, or even if detected, they are unmolested, how convenient would it be for shipments that would not incite suspicions due to their regular appearance or packaging, say, boxes of illegal drugs packaged as fake grapes mixed with boxes of real grapes stuffed into a container of imported fruits?
Or, antisocial goods coursed through “green lane” of the Customs risk-management system? Or, even through the “super green lane”, or what is now known as the “blue lane” of its selectivity screens? That the latter is accessible and available only to some 200 preregistered top corporations is no guarantee that antisocial goods—drugs, firearms or other weapons of mass destruction—may pass through this “free way” of sort.
As has already happened, or is still happening, the country is a sitting duck.
To reach the writer, e-mail cecilio.arillo@gmail.com.