CEBU CITY -- The National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) in Central Visayas region will look into the possibility of an inside job in the loss of smuggled rice from the compound of the Cebu International Port (CIP).
NBI regional director Antonio Pagatpat said he created a three-man panel to do the investigation, which started last Friday.
For its part, the Bureau of Customs (BOC) Port of Cebu will conduct a second public bidding on Aug. 7 of some confiscated rice stocks, to prevent further losses due to pilferage or decay.
In his State of the Nation Address last Monday, President Benigno Aquino III lambasted the BOC, among other agencies, for incompetence and corruption in some of its personnel.
“We are all affected because the people might think that all of us did not perform our job,” said Port of Cebu District Collector Edward Dela Cuesta.
“But I am happy to present our performance, especially in achieving surplus collections from January to June 2013,” he said. Dela Cuesta also pointed to the seizure of 1,169 cargo containers of smuggled rice last April, which he described as the biggest batch seized this year, so far.
The BOC was supposed to auction off some smuggled rice last June 25, but this was postponed.
Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon again stopped a bidding scheduled last July 18, reportedly on orders of Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima.
But also this month, Dela Cuesta sent a memorandum to Biazon stating that the customs police, headed by Major Camilo Cascolan Jr., reported the pilferage of smuggled rice inside the CIP.
“There is now a very urgent and compelling reason for the undersigned to reiterate that the forfeited rice should now be disposed of immediately through public auction,” read Dela Cuesta’s memo to Biazon.
Dela Cuesta said there are 1,229 cargo containers of rice, but on Aug. 7, only about 300 containers will be offered in a public bidding. Each container holds 520 sacks.
All qualified rice dealers and retailers who are accredited by the National Food Authority (NFA) may join.
Another public bidding will be scheduled after that.
The first bidding was held last May, and 50 container vans with 26,000 sacks of rice were sold at P1,560 per sack. The NFA had recommended a floor price of P1,300.
Meanwhile, lawyer Dante Maranan, chief of the Port of Cebu’s Auction and Cargo Disposal Unit, said the inventory committee reported that only 272 sacks of rice were missing (not 500 sacks as earlier reported).
The inventory committee counted the sacks in nine cargo containers with broken government seals. The rest of the 1,229 remaining cargo containers have intact seals and were left out of the inventory.
Arneth Von Carmen Manquiquis chairs the committee.
The customs police division has also reported to Dela Cuesta that some of rice stocks inside the cargo containers have rotted.
Special Agents Alfredo Regidor Jr. and Danilo Jamito Jr. reported to Major Cascolan that they participated in the inventory of the nine containers that no longer had intact seals.
They said that a representative from the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service (CIIS) also joined the inventory.
They found out that in one cargo container, there were 28 sacks with rotten rice. In another container, most of the contents—about 520 sacks of rice—were already rotten.
The NBI, for its part, will coordinate with the CIP, BOC, Cebu Port Authority (CPA), and other offices based in the pier area.
The Commission on Audit, Pagatpat said, will also be tapped by the investigators.
Under Republic Act 157, the NBI can investigate any “crimes and other offenses against the laws of the Philippines, upon its own initiative and as public interest may require.”
The Office of the Ombudsman-Visayas is also investigating the alleged pilferage. (EOB/KAL/Sun.Star Cebu)
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? BOC pay imo...atot..
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