Subic Customs Under Fire

After having been literaly burned last February 2004, the office of Bureau of Customs in Subic is again under fire, this time because of the Probe on missing cellphones

SUBIC Bay Freeport -- Customs Commissioner George Jereos has tasked Deputy Commissioner Ray Allas of the Intelligence Enforcement Group to conduct further investigation into the missing 138 units of imported cellular phones which was placed under the custody of BoC Subic. The 138 cellular phones worth some P3 million were part of a ton of imported 7610 and 7650 cellular phones from Thailand shipped via Federal Express which were confiscated by the BoC examiners for lack of proper documents.

The shipment was transported to the BoC offices which in turn move them to the Auction Cargo Disposal Division for custody, under BoC police escorts, after being inventoried at the FedEx. BoC District Collector Arnel Alcaraz evaded reporters who tried to reach him for comment on the missing items. A certain BoC officer Noble said, "Bawal ang mag-istambay dito" and asked the reporters to keep out of the area while allowing other people to stay outside the BoC offices. The case of the missing cellphones is just one of the many cases of shipments smuggled out of the Freeport despite very tight security measures being imposed by the BoC police in the Freeport.

Johnny R. Reblando

People's Journal