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Customs, agriculture bigwigs avoiding Congress hearings

Customs, agriculture bigwigs avoiding Congress hearings

by | Jan 25, 2023 | Gotcha

(PNA photo)

GOTCHA

Summon Customs and Agriculture chiefs. Subpoena full records. Require video proofs of smashing of smuggled foods. Swear attendees to truth. Televise hearings.

Lawmakers must show teeth in probing agricultural smuggling and hoarding. Niceties don’t get answers. Prices are skyrocketing and supplies dwindling of onions, vegetables, sugar, eggs and meats.

From posted farmgate rates, producers obviously aren’t the culprits. Consumers can’t be officiously insulted to “buy by the piece if you can’t afford a kilo.” Market vendors shouldn’t be jailed for modest markups beyond “suggested” retail prices.

“Why hasn’t Customs Commissioner Yogi Ruiz attended any of our agri-smuggling hearings?” Sen. Imee Marcos wondered Monday, Jan. 16. Ruiz was in Batangas personally examining contraband sugar. Low in the totem pole, Asst. Comm. Vincent Maronilla tried to explain matters like lack of intelligence and investigation of long exposed traffickers. Although a lateral transferee from the Drug Enforcement Agency, it’s Ruiz who must answer.

Ruiz was also a no-show at the Jan. 23 hearing of the House ways and means committee on agri-smuggling. On training in Japan, he was also absent the next day at the agriculture and food committee inquiry on the nine-fold increase in onion prices. It had to be canceled.

Agriculture Senior Undersecretary Domingo Panganiban has been snubbing invitations. As self-appointed agriculture secretary, President Marcos Jr. cannot be called to the co-equal Congress.

Panganiban’s seniority in rank and age – 83 – presupposes knowledge of all department works. To him report 75 under- and assistant secretaries, bureau, subsidiary and regional heads.

Having himself represented by a USec seconded from NEDA and a spokesman wasted Congress time. “Marcos Jr. must appoint a permanent secretary” with time and expertise, Sen. Grace Poe stated.

Their absenteeism leaves wrong policies and poor planning un-scrutinized, Senators Koko Pimentel and Nancy Binay noted. Rep. Nicanor Briones, Agricultural Sector Alliance party, recalled that former secretary William Dar had also boycotted Congress hearings. Congress’ oversight function is blunted. Inadequate investigations cannot aid legislation.

 Issues merit congressional scrutiny:

• Absence of photos or videos of destruction of smuggled fresh foods, along with reports on venue, date and witnesses.

Subpoena duces tecum will compel Customs to submit those legal requirements. Burying is a must for contraband foods without sanitary/phytosanitary inspection certificates. SPSICs protect consumers from toxins and E. coli, and farms from infestations like weevil, African swine fever, bird flu.

• Sudden transfer last Jan. 17 of the X-ray Inspection Project to the Office of the Commissioner from the Deputy for Intelligence.

Vital in detecting contraband, XIP should be under Intelligence or Enforcement for efficiency, check and balance. Last time it was placed under the commissioner, tons of shabu slipped past Customs at Manila International Container Port inside magnetic lifters, 2017 and interspersed with sacks of tapioca, 2018.

• Customs decides whether or not to charge a smuggler with economic sabotage.

Such discretion must be removed, said Sen. Cynthia Villar, agriculture committee head. Customs merely inserted it in the Implementing Rules and Regulations of the 2016 Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act. Deemed as heinous, nonbailable life-term offense is smuggling of at least P1 million in vegetables, sugar, poultry, pork or P10 million in rice.

From Customs press releases, two repeat offenders are Frankie Trading Enterprises and Primex Export-Import Producer. Four times last July they sneaked into Cagayan de Oro 22 cargo containers of onions, each worth P3 million, over the threshold amount for economic sabotage. No indictment. Contrabands were condemned. No photo/video of the destruction. Worse, at least six containers were brought out of Customs in September and retailed in Davao and Surigao.

• Demand and supply miscalculations.

DA bureaus for plant, animal, fish and aquatic resources must improve data gathering on consumption and harvest. As well, on owners and contents of cold storages. If owners are also hoarders, importers and smugglers, then that’s proof of cartels, said Rep. Joey Salceda, ways and means chairman.

Misinformed on available stocks, Marcos Jr. first rejected then hurriedly imported sugar and onion. Misinformed again on the timing, he imported right when cane and onion growers were harvesting. Plummet of farmgate rates bankrupted them.

• Poor monitoring of food types and volumes that enjoy special low duties till end-2023.

Briones cited pork, for which President Duterte slashed duties to only 15-25 percent to lower consumer prices and offset the ASF epidemic. Technical smuggling ensued. Of 710,000 tons in 2022, only 300,000 were correctly declared as pork. More than 410,000 tons were mis-declared as offal (innards, tongue, cheek, brain), extenders not for public retail, subject to only 2 percent duty. “Unsatisfied with the lower 15-25 percent duty, importers-smugglers lied to enjoy only 2 percent, yet sold their contraband at high pork rates,” Briones said.

• Customs and DA resist revival of a Malacañang-level anti-smuggling task force that includes industry leaders.

Amendments must be enacted to form such a task force for food, medicines, electronics, apparel, construction materials, etc. PNP, NBI, ISAFP, PDEA will assign crack teams in support.

* * *

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Sinovac safety efficacy and price still need clarifying

Video disproves BBM: China still barring Filipino fishers

Video disproves BBM: China still barring Filipino fishers

by | Jan 20, 2023 | Gotcha

Screenshot taken from the footage of the fishers in San Salvador isle, Masinloc, Zambales

GOTCHA

China still forbids Filipinos from fishing at Panatag (Scarborough) Shoal in the West Philippine Sea. A video nine days ago shows Chinese coastguards menacing them on approaching their traditional fishing ground. It belies President Marcos Jr.’s claim that Beijing “will not stop our fishermen.”

The fishers are from San Salvador isle, Masinloc, Zambales. During a respite from weeks-long torrential rains, they had sailed Jan. 11 to Panatag for food and income. They caught nothing, leaving to avoid usual Chinese machinegun fire and water cannonade.

The phone videographer requested anonymity. He and companions are with Bigkis Mangingisda that groups dispossessed fishers of Zambales, Bataan, Pangasinan and Ilocos. Ria Teves of rural NGO Peoples Development Institute shared the video.

Days ago Marcos Jr. told reporters of an accord with China President Xi Jinping to let Filipinos fish freely. “It’s really an agreement that China will not stop our fishermen from fishing. That’s it. Very simple,” he said.

Malacañang has yet to detail that deal made during Marcos Jr.’s state visit to Beijing on Jan. 3-5. International maritime lawyer Jay Batongbacal, PhD, said the wording should not be a selloff.

Only 123 miles from Zambales in Luzon, Panatag is within the Philippines’ 200-mile exclusive economic zone and 700-miles distant from China. The UN Convention on the Law of the Sea grants coastal states EEZs for sole use.

China seized Panatag in 2012 on unfounded claim of a nine-dash line over the whole South China Sea. Gunboats chained off the mouth to the shoal’s lagoon. Thousands of Filipinos lost livelihoods in the Western EEZ.

Manila complained to The Hague arbitral court, which in 2016 trashed Beijing’s expansionism. China intensified its sea aggression.

Beijing habitually lies; Manila always falls for it. In September 2016, after a visit, then-president Duterte announced that China will no longer harass Filipinos at Panatag. A month later satellite photos showed China gunboats still controlling the lagoon, with Filipinos sailing at a distance.

 

In June 2019 a Chinese steel trawler rammed an anchored Filipino wooden boat at Recto (Reed) Bank, 120 miles off Palawan. The trespasser sped away, leaving 22 Filipinos floating in the cold night waters.

Calling it a “little accident”, Duterte justified the Chinese presence. He had allowed them into Recto in exchange for Xi letting Filipinos into Panatag – which never happened.

Senator Risa Hontiveros and former Supreme Court Justice Antonio Carpio said Duterte had no authority to give away Philippine EEZ. No limits were set in fishing area, volume and duration. The presidential spokesman retorted that the deal was only verbal.

In mainland Zambales, a Chinese-controlled miner has been despoiling nickel ore without permit. Yinglong Steel Corp. reportedly has dug up 250,000 tons of ore worth P1.3 billion from Masinloc, Botolan, Sta. Cruz and Candelaria, up to Infanta, Pangasinan.

Residents liken Yinglong’s destructive mining to that of three Chinese firms a decade ago. Exposed in this column, Jiangxi Rare Earth & Metals Tungsten Group, Wei-Wei Group and Nihao Mineral Resources Inc. brought misery to the shore towns. Forests were denuded, hillsides leveled, rivers choked and seas polluted.

Dust and emissions from thousands of dump trucks, bulldozers and backhoes sickened townsfolk, health officials confirmed.

In 2021 Candelaria residents decried how Yinglong turned Uacon lake reddish-brown. Uacon used to be Central Luzon’s cleanest lake. The Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources discovered that mining had heavily silted three lake tributaries. The SAVE Candelaria Movement failed to eject Yinglong.

Infanta artisanal fishermen can no longer catch in the “red sea”, said PDI’s Teves. “They’re going hungry.”

Last Monday, Yinglong attempted to ship out to China 50,000 tons of nickel laterite worth P250,000. Customs and coastguards stopped the vessel from departing Masinloc wharf. It had no export permit.

Yinglong is at the center of an official tug-o-war. In March-April 2022 DENR’s Mines and Geosciences Bureau ordered it to cease. It had no environmental compliance certificate (ECC), MGB declared. It was only using an ECC issued to Westchinamin from which it acquired nickel extraction rights.

By law actual miners, not predecessors, must have ECCs. Westchinamin claims it has been paid only $850,000 of $20-million sale to Yinglong. It wants DENR to delist Yinglong.

On Dec. 23 deputy executive secretary for legal affairs Anna Liza Logan overturned MGB’s closure order. Dec. 29, DENR’s Environment Management Bureau issued Yinglong export permits.

Early this month two DENR undersecretaries, through MGB, recalled the permits. Customs seized the cargo. Yinglong cried harassment by MGB director Wilfredo Moncano. Its president Eugene Co had complained to the Ombudsman about MGB’s P10-million extortion in October 2021 for mining licenses. Yinglong paid an initial P3 million.

China uses nickel for military weaponry and spyware. Main source: Philippines, the world’s second largest nickel producer. It uses those weapons and spyware against Filipinos.

Ten years ago Masinloc civic leaders sought Supreme Court help against Jiangxi, Wei-Wei and Nihao. Carpio, as acting Chief Justice, issued a Writ of Kalikasan. Police and DENR shut down the destructive mines. Small-scale miners retook their sites from the Chinese giants.

* * *

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Sinovac safety efficacy and price still need clarifying

JMSU emboldened China to aggress our seas

JMSU emboldened China to aggress our seas

by | Jan 18, 2023 | Gotcha

(Map from U.S. Dept. of State, Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs)

GOTCHA

The Supreme Court verdict came 15 years late. Still, its voiding of the unconstitutional 2005 Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking is salient. Observations are confirmed that then-president Gloria Arroyo had emboldened Chinese aggression in the Philippines’ 200-mile exclusive economic zone. Caution also is served on President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. against rushing into joint petroleum exploration with China in Philippine maritime jurisdiction.

In 2005, the JMSU let state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corp. explore 142,886 square kilometers of western Philippine EEZ. It illegally claimed the EEZ as part of its internal waters.

Vietnam Oil and Gas Corp. partnered as one-third of the venture. Last third was Philippine National Oil Co.

One-sixth of the survey area, about 24,000 square kilometers, was within Palawan Sea – Philippine territory.

Malacañang hid the deal from Congress and the public. It was uncovered only in 2008. By then, the Philippines already had spent $16 million as project share.

 

Journalist Barry Wain exposed JMSU in Far Eastern Economic Review, Jan-Feb 2008. He noted that Manila at first led ASEAN to make China sign the 2002 Declaration of Conduct in South China Sea. The DOC enjoined China to stop confrontational expansion of its occupied reefs. Yet with JMSU, Manila broke ranks from its allies and let Beijing explore the Philippine seabed.

Wain wrote that the edge of JMSU exploration was only 25 kilometers from Palawan’s southern town of Balabac – intruding on Philippine territory.

At that time Congress was investigating three Chinese deals. One was the $329-million National Broadband Network of ZTE Corp. Exposed in Gotcha and attested by whistleblowers at the Senate, it contained a $200-million (P10-billion) kickback.

Another was an illegal grant to newborn subsidiary ZTE International of gold mining rights in Mount Diwalwal and North Davao. Third was the participation of China State Grid, contrary to announced policy, in the transmission company’s privatization.

JMSU came in two phases, the first in 2005-2008. Exposed in 2008, Malacañang withdrew from the second phase, 2008-2010.

 

China used Malacañang’s withdrawal to withhold all exploration findings from the Philippines. Armed with the data, China in 2009 unilaterally filed with the UN a nine-dash line claim over the entire SCS.

Before JMSU, the Arroyo admin showed subservience to Beijing. On the Chinese embassy’s demand, Malacañang would release Hainan poachers arrested in the EEZ. Once, hundreds of Palawan citizens sat on the airport runway to prevent repatriation of poachers with pending court cases.

Seven congressmen led by Satur Ocampo and Teddy Casiño petitioned the SC in 2008 to nullify JMSU. The SC opined JMSU broke the Constitution in allowing foreigners to dominate the exploration.

Article XII National Economy and Patrimony, Section 2, limits such activities to Filipino citizens or corporations at least 60 percent Filipino-owned.

Further: “Exploration, development and utilization of natural resources shall be under full control and supervision of the State.

“The President may enter into agreements with foreign-owned corporations involving either technical or financial assistance for large-scale exploration, development and utilization of minerals, petroleum and other mineral oils.

“The President shall notify Congress of every contract entered into in accordance with this provision, within thirty days from its execution.”

Senators denounced Arroyo for not informing them of JMSU. Also, for spending $16 million without congressional consent.

Starting 2018, president Rody Duterte negotiated joint oil and gas development with China in Recto Bank. Talks collapsed last June due to China’s insistence on its laws to govern the Philippine EEZ.

Last week Chinese President Xi Jinping egged visiting Marcos Jr. to resume talks. Casiño said Tuesday: “May this [SC ruling] be a warning to Marcos Jr. not to trifle with the constitutional provisions that reserve the exploitation of our natural resources exclusively to Filipinos and under the full supervision and control of the Philippine government.”

Excerpts from Gotcha 10, 12, 14 March 2008:

Arroyo rushed to Beijing on Sept. 1, 2004 to oversee the signing of an “Agreement for Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking in Certain Areas in [SCS].” RP and China couched the pact in vague diplomatese, e.g., “turn an area of potential conflict into a zone of cooperation.”

Vietnam got wind of the inclusion of its own Spratly claims in the area, and protested. As appeasement, RP and China let Vietnam in on the deal. A sequel “Tripartite Agreement for Joint Marine Scientific Research in Certain Areas in [SCS]” was signed on Mar. 14, 2005.

Invoking the pact, China resists drilling in Palawan by Filipino firms that were granted survey rights well before the 2004 or 2005 signings. Drilling in RP waters provokes the Chinese Navy to steam in and enforce “joint rights” over the area.

The 2004 RP-China pact originally was billed “joint exploration.” Then-presidential legal counsel Merceditas Gutierrez found it unconstitutional. It was changed to “An Agreement for Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking in Certain Areas of [SCS].”

“Seismic” still pertains to exploration, which the Charter forbids unless under stringent conditions. When Vietnam was included in 2005, a “cure” was proposed thus: “A Tripartite Agreement for Joint Scientific Research in Certain Areas of [SCS].” But the signed version still had the revealing title, “A Tripartite Agreement for Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking.”

* * *

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            “Gotcha: An Exposé on the Philippine Government” is available as e-book and paperback. Get a free copy of “Chapter 1: Beijing’s Bullying and Duplicity”. Simply subscribe to my newsletter HERE. Book orders also accepted there.

Sinovac safety efficacy and price still need clarifying

Why are smugglers left untouched?

Why are smugglers left untouched?

by | Jan 13, 2023 | Gotcha

(Smuggled onions at Tagaloan Port, Misamis Oriental, Dec. 21, 2022 – PNA)

GOTCHA

Everything government does about pricey basic foods hurts little folk. But billionaire cartelist-smugglers benefit.

Example, onions. Government suggested retail prices and arrested uncompliant market vendors. Suggestions are law, it claimed.

To consumers grumbling that onion prices have multiplied nine-fold, it advised to buy per piece instead of per kilo. As if one shallot is enough to spice up bistek or sisig.

To indigents patronizing Kadiwa rolling stores, it sold smuggled contaminated Chinese onions mis-advertised as “fresh” domestic harvest. The last harvest was in August-October, next is February-April.

It will import 21,060,000 kilos by Jan 27 “to stabilize supply.” That’s a staggering 753 40-foot cargo containers – which will depress farmgate rates and bankrupt growers at harvesttime.

Spared by government, cartelists-smugglers are raking it big. Obvious reason: vendors, indigents, consumers, farmers don’t have hundred-million pesos to bribe authorities to look the other way.

Customs insiders confided to Gotcha the modus. Smugglers use Customs bosses’ favorite consignees. Capitalized at only P30 per kilo plus bulk freight cost, they pass on onions to retailers at P450-P650.

Bribery is by bulk, not pesos and centavos. For every five containers, three are for smugglers, two for Customs accomplices.

Smugglers and Customs cohorts are protected at highest places. They give nine-digit protection money to two persons closest to the center of power.

 

 

The biggest smuggler at the Port of Subic is an ex-congressman. His front consignees enjoy duty- and inspection-free privilege.

Three new contrabandists lord it over Port of Manila, Manila International Container Port (MICP), Subic and Batangas. The first, in his 30s, is a naturalized Filipino from China, “Mike Ma.” Second, in his 40s, is Chinoy “Gene Ang.” Third, in her 50s, is alias “Beverly Peres.”

Ma and Ang’s contacts are at Customs HQ in Manila. But they never go there, sending only an influential go-between, the brother of a Malacañang bigwig.

Senator Cynthia Villar vowed Tuesday to re-investigate agricultural cartelists-smugglers. In 2013 she uncovered that sleazy Bureau of Plant Industry officials issue them one-time import permits even during onion harvest. In cahoots with Customs crooks, they recycle lapsed permits to bring in more shiploads year-round.

Edible bulbs are packed in all available cold storages, leaving no space for domestic harvest. Produce rotting, farmers give in to cartelists’ low dictated rates. In April 2022 disgusted Mindoro farmers burned P9-million bulbs highway side.

At an inquiry that month, then-Senate President Tito Sotto disclosed four of 22 culprits named in intelligence reports:

• Leah “Luz” Cruz, operating in Cagayan de Oro and MICP;

• Manuel Tan, CdO, Subic, Batangas;

• Jun Diamante, CdO;

• Andrew Chang, MICP, Port of Manila, Batangas.

None have been indicted.

On Dec. 27, Agriculture assistant secretary James Layug requested Customs to “issue alert orders and joint 100-percent inspection” of all cargos of six consignees:

• Victory JM Enterprises;

• Taculog Int’l Consumer Goods Trading;

• Asterzenmed Aggregates;

• Veneta Consumer Goods Trading;

• Lalavy Aggregates Trading;

• SB Express Logistics Business Solution.

Alvin Enciso, Customs intelligence and investigation head at MICP, endorsed it to District Collector Arnoldo Famor. No word from Customs Commissioner Yogi Ruiz about the red alert.

Rushed imports dismay onion farmers. Gofer-bureaucrats of cartelists-smugglers have tricked President/Secretary of Agriculture Ferdinand Marcos Jr. to approve it.

Federation of Free Farmers chairman Leonardo Montemayor said farmers are being punished for high onion prices caused by criminals. “They should instead be helped to recover from last year’s severe typhoons, and expensive fertilizer and fuel,” said the ex-agri boss.

“Smugglers are more organized than the government,” lamented Gregorio San Diego, head of chicken raisers and egg distributors. His poultry industry is suffering from similar low-duty imports that Marcos Jr. authorized last month.

Customs HQ tried to dazzle the public Wednesday with news of interdicting P2-billion smuggled Chinese agricultural produce in 2022. The spox claimed that they protected local farmers and food safety of Filipinos. Yet only two weeks ago Ruiz offered to donate confiscated Chinese onions to Marcos Jr.’s Kadiwa stores. That was despite official findings of toxin and E. coli contamination.

Instead of abstract billion-pesos, Customs must instead prove that they destroyed the contraband fresh foods. The law so requires for public health and agricultural biosecurity. Photos and videos should show the manner, venue, date and witnesses to the destruction.

To date, Customs has said nothing about the smuggling at CdO by Frankie Trading Enterprises and Primex Export-Import Producer of 22 containers, each laden with 28,000 kilos of onions last July. No word too about the sneak-out of the contraband for retail in Davao and Surigao instead of destroyed by Customs condemnator Greenleaf 88. The only action about it is that, instead of suspending Port Collector Elvira Cruz, Ruiz promoted her to busier Port of Cebu.

* * *

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Sinovac safety efficacy and price still need clarifying

If not videoed, ‘destroyed’ contraband can be recycled

If not videoed, ‘destroyed’ contraband can be recycled

by | Jan 11, 2023 | Gotcha

(Alarmed sentries photographed the sneak out of confiscated onions from the Customs area)

GOTCHA

Customs men always trumpet interdictions of smuggled goods. Press releases quote top officials for the feats.

Example: the seizures of contraband Chinese onion at Port of Cagayan de Oro last July 7, 19, 22 and 29. Twenty-two 40-foot cargo containers, each laden with 28,000 kilos of yellow onion, were misdeclared as butter, lumpia patty and siopao buns. Customs valued each container at P3 million, or P66 million for all 22.

“Elimination of agricultural smuggling, along with drugs and guns, is my priority,” publicized Customs Chief Yogi Ruiz, a transferee in 2017 from the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency. “We have a legacy to continue, one started by the previous admin.”

Something’s missing in the picture. What happened to the onions? In previous admins, smuggled sports cars or DVDs were steamrollered. Such contraband can be auctioned, but were instead destroyed because smugglers invariably won them back. How about fresh foods?

Smuggled agricultural produce must be “confiscated and destroyed, or returned to the country of origin, or shipped to a third country.” Department of Agriculture (DA) Order No. 9-2010 mandates: “In no case shall a confiscated consignment be auctioned, redeemed, donated or sold.”

Revisions came in 2016. The Customs Modernization and Tariff Act allowed for donation of smuggled fresh foods “if fit for human consumption.“ But DA must first inspect and certify sanitation/phytosanitation.

When the 22 containers were sneaked into CdO, DA was under orders from President/Agriculture Secretary Ferdinand Marcos Jr.: Strictly no issuance of sanitary/phytosanitary inspection certificates for onion and garlic.

 

 

CDO port collector Elvira Cruz on Aug. 20 directed confiscation and condemnation. An accredited “condemnator” was picked: Greenleaf 88. The onions were to be crushed and buried within 30 days.

Firm procedures govern condemnations. Then-Customs Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero issued in July 2021 Rules and Regulations on Disposition of Forfeited and Abandoned Goods through Condemnation. Manner of destruction, deadlines, venues, witnesses were specified. Section 21, Completion Report, required “all pertinent documents including photographs and video clips relative to the process of disposal, duly certified by head of disposing office.”

A funny thing happened on the way to destruction. On Sept. 18 the contents of six cargo containers were transferred to open wing vans. Value: P18 million in onions. Alarmed, Customs sentries photographed the anomaly.

The trucks scooted off to Davao City where the contraband was retailed for P600 per kilo. Total take: 6 containers x 28,000 kilos x P600 = P100.8 million. (See Gotcha, 28 Sept. 2022)

Thousands more kilos had earlier been sneaked out of Customs-CdO, transported to Surigao Port and shipped to Tacloban. Alert Bureau of Plant Industry personnel in Tacloban sent the onions back to Surigao, where the BPI rep. memo-ed the Customs Port Collector about the irregularity. (See Gotcha, 5 Oct. 2022)

The stink reached Customs-Manila HQ. Ruiz told Intelligence Group Dir. Jeoffrey Tacio to investigate “District Collector [Cruz] and all personnel that may be involved in the alleged onion smuggling.” Further, “determine within five working days if [their] temporary relief is warranted during investigation. For strict compliance.”

Weeks later, Ruiz told Gotcha, “I have removed Cruz.” But Malacañang insiders shared that Ruiz in truth had actually promoted Cruz to Port Collector of busier Cebu. Cruz had served before as Cebu Port Collector, until transferred to CdO by Ruiz’s predecessor Guererro.

Officials often invoke “presumption of regularity of action.” Ruiz is entitled to such. But he must produce the condemnation report, with geo/date/time-stamped photos and videos of how, when, where and witnessed by whom.

Same with 100,000 kilos of onions seized at Port of Manila last Nov. 29, which DA spox Rex Estoperez said was partly rotting and contaminated with toxins and E. coli. Same with P20-million Chinese carrots, also spoiled. Where are the reports, photos and videos?

Without such details, contraband onion can be sneaked out and retailed at today’s P740 per kilo. Same way PDEA-South Metro Manila officers recycled confiscated shabu to the streets.

* * *

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            “Gotcha: An Exposé on the Philippine Government” is available as e-book and paperback. Get a free copy of “Chapter 1: Beijing’s Bullying and Duplicity”. Simply subscribe to my newsletter HERE. Book orders also accepted there.

Sinovac safety efficacy and price still need clarifying

Paper ID cards,narco-generals: more signs of a broken

Paper ID cards,narco-generals: more signs of a broken

by | Jan 6, 2023 | Gotcha

Photo from Philippine Identification System website

GOTCHA

Republic Want more proofs of a broken Republic?

The government contracted an Indian outfit in 2019 for the long-planned National Identification System. For P30 billion, tens of millions of adults were to be issued plastic ID cards. The system is to be turned over to the government after five years.

Each card is to show bearer’s color photo, full name, birth date and place, gender, address, civil status, mobile number, email address. An embedded com-puter chip must store complete fingerprints and iris scan.
List-ups commenced in barangays in late 2021. Government said the cards were to be delivered to homes within weeks.

But the first few cards were sent only a year later. They weren’t plastic but mere black and white photocopies on one-half bond paper. No embedded chip. Photo and text smudged. Instructions were to keep these “clean and crumple-free,” better laminated, kanya-kanyang bayad.

Only few got plastic cards. They complained that their color photo and text can be erased. Those who didn’t receive photocopies were told to download their IDs online, again kanya-kanyang color printing and lamination. Easily alterable; very useful for terrorists and criminals.

Government was duped. At P5 per plastic card with chip, all 110 million Filipinos, including minors, could have been issued cards for only P550 million. Cer-tainly not P30 billion.

A diplomat confided to GOTCHA that a European state firm had offered to do the job for only $16 million, or P800 million. All Malacañang had to do was au-thorize it to compile data from SSS, GSIS, PhilHealth,

Pag-IBIG, LTO driver’s licenses and Comelec voter registry.

But there’s no P29-billion kickback there.

The Secretary of the Interior and Local Government told all police generals and colonels to file courtesy resignations. It’s his “shortcut” to purge the unnamed narcos among them. A five-man panel is to review each one’s activities, to determine and fire the guilty. Still, he said, it’s alright if some opt to not file.

 

 

Many retired generals howled. There’s a proper cleanup process, they said, and that entails not mere intelligence gathering but meticulous investigating and prosecuting. Narco-generals must be imprisoned, not just dismissed from service and let loose on society. Shortcutting breeds favoritism, kowtowing and demoralization. “Maybe the admin just wants to install gofers in the police hierarchy,” a general remarked.

The previous admin had resorted to shortcutting in its drug war. It linked five generals and several local officials to the narco-trade, without evidence and charges. It also killed 7,000 pushers and junkies who supposedly fought back arresting officers.

The SILG should instead demand resignation of crooked local execs, netizens hooted. Then again, he’s a political dynast.

To look busy, the trade department issued “suggested retail prices” of garlic and onion. It claimed that its SRPs, only one-third of skyrocketing costs of the spices, have the force of law. Supposedly they can arrest violators. Garlic and onion disappeared from public markets.

Sucking-up characterizes an aimless admin. More so one whose election is still in question at the Supreme Court. To please the President/secretary of agri-culture, the Customs chief offers to donate to Kadiwa rolling stores tons of confiscated smuggled onions. Yet the law states that contraband fresh foods must be destroyed for public health and agricultural biosecurity.

To escape blame for the New Year’s Day forced closure of all airports, the Civil Aviation chief alibied “outdated” airspace traffic management equipment. He wants funds for upgrade. Yet the gear is barely four years old, acquired via Japanese loan still being repaid by government. He knows that because he was the past admin’s undersecretary for aviation and airports.

The real problem is lack of fail-safe mechanisms and technical knowhow. A blower (cooling fan) conked out and there was no backup. An unskilled worker re-plugged it to uninterrupted power supply consoles that also conked out. Obvious mismanagement and neglect by higher-ups who vacationed early.

Flying to China despite the COVID-19 surge there, Marcos Jr. declared that there’s more in relations with Beijing than maritime disputes. That’s the same line predecessor Rody Duterte uttered before allowing Chinese to fish in Philippine waters, no limit on volume, area and duration.

Back in Manila, Marcos Jr. reported new pacts on joint petroleum exploration in Philippine seas that China illegally claims. The pacts have yet to be disclosed but Beijing insists that Manila forbid “foreign meddling.” China pulled a fast one since that implies departure from the Phl-US Mutual Defense Agreement Against Foreign Aggression. Very much like Duterte scrapping the Phl-US Visiting Forces Agreement.

Ex-president Gloria Arroyo, who accompanied Marcos. Jr., had signed with Beijing in 2005 a Joint Marine Seismic Undertaking. In breach of the Constitution, JMSU let China survey thousands of square kilometers of Philippine seabed.

Despite Malacañang’s contribution of $5 million – without congressional knowledge or consent – it never got a copy of the Chinese study. Armed with the results, Beijing in 2009 unilaterally declared a nine-dash line claim over the entire South China Sea.

Two years prior, Arroyo also signed the overpriced National Broadband Network-ZTE contract in Hainan. Subsidiary ZTE International was unconstitutionally granted gold mining rights in Mt. Diwata and North Davao. A whistleblower later testified in the Senate that ZTE bigwigs paid $10-million bribe.

Any new arrangement may not be of pressing concern to Filipinos. More alarming is if Marcos Jr.’s China entourage brought home COVID-19 infections. The health department today, as in March 2020 when pandemic started, hesitates to screen travelers from China.

Realizing his mistake in 2020, Duterte locked down the country wholesale. The economy collapsed: 19 million lost livelihoods. Marcos Jr. extols Duterte’s admin. What will he do if pandemic resurges in this broken republic?

* * *

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Sinovac safety efficacy and price still need clarifying

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