Stop smuggling, Arroyo tells PASG head
“NO, NO, NO. STAY on. It’s a demolition job. Wag mong patulan. (Don’t dignify it). Just do your job.”
With that directive from President Macapagal-Arroyo, Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group chief Antonio Villar Jr. has decided to put his resignation plan on hold.
“I told the President there would be no sacred cows when I resume my work and she agreed with me,” Villar said of what he and Ms Arroyo talked about in their hour-long meeting on Friday.
Villar announced his intention to resign on Wednesday as some legislators questioned the work of the PASG and, recently, threatened to cite him in contempt for his absence in hearings on car smuggling in Central Visayas.
He feared that his continuing war with these lawmakers would bring pressure to Ms Arroyo.
“I also informed [the President] that I only wanted to go because I don’t want pressures to be coming her way in case some legislators demand my relief. I don’t want her to be losing her allies,” Villar said.
“Just work, just work. Stop smuggling,” he said of what Ms Arroyo stressed to him during their meeting.
In the last seven months that Villar headed the PASG, more than P6 billion worth of smuggled or undervalued oil, cars and motorcycles, computers, textiles, agricultural products and pyrotechnics had been seized, an agency report showed.
The PASG was formed by the President through Executive Order No. 624 in May 2007.
While Ms Arroyo has advised him to ignore his detractors, Villar in the same phone interview on Saturday criticized Albay Rep. Al Francis Bichara, one of his critics.
“I cannot keep my silence because this man has been fabricating stories about me,” he said, referring to reports that he met a suspected smuggler in Manila last week.
“As a matter of policy, I don’t talk to importers, smugglers pa? I have offended many of my friends and relatives because I refused to talk to the importers who approached them,” he said.
On the contempt charges that he is facing from Congress, Villar said: “Go ahead, arrest me.”
“I would only go if I get word that we are going to be treated as resource persons on smuggling, which was why we were invited in the first place and why I sent all our PASG personnel. In the last three hearings, we were the ones who were being investigated. I find that unfair. Nagtatrabaho naman kami ng husto (We were working hard),” Villar said.
Car dealers in Cebu had expressed dismay over the failure of the customs bureau there to stop car smuggling.
Jose Manuel Cuenco, president of the Cebu Auto Dealers Association (Cada), said there is a plan to form a broader coalition composed of business associations and cause-oriented groups to stop car smuggling.
“We don’t see any results from their investigation yet. It is already too frustrating that the government fails to address the problem on smuggling,” said Cuenco. By Tonette Orejas, Jolene Bulambot - Inquirer Central Luzon Desk, Visayas Bureau
With that directive from President Macapagal-Arroyo, Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group chief Antonio Villar Jr. has decided to put his resignation plan on hold.
“I told the President there would be no sacred cows when I resume my work and she agreed with me,” Villar said of what he and Ms Arroyo talked about in their hour-long meeting on Friday.
Villar announced his intention to resign on Wednesday as some legislators questioned the work of the PASG and, recently, threatened to cite him in contempt for his absence in hearings on car smuggling in Central Visayas.
He feared that his continuing war with these lawmakers would bring pressure to Ms Arroyo.
“I also informed [the President] that I only wanted to go because I don’t want pressures to be coming her way in case some legislators demand my relief. I don’t want her to be losing her allies,” Villar said.
“Just work, just work. Stop smuggling,” he said of what Ms Arroyo stressed to him during their meeting.
In the last seven months that Villar headed the PASG, more than P6 billion worth of smuggled or undervalued oil, cars and motorcycles, computers, textiles, agricultural products and pyrotechnics had been seized, an agency report showed.
The PASG was formed by the President through Executive Order No. 624 in May 2007.
While Ms Arroyo has advised him to ignore his detractors, Villar in the same phone interview on Saturday criticized Albay Rep. Al Francis Bichara, one of his critics.
“I cannot keep my silence because this man has been fabricating stories about me,” he said, referring to reports that he met a suspected smuggler in Manila last week.
“As a matter of policy, I don’t talk to importers, smugglers pa? I have offended many of my friends and relatives because I refused to talk to the importers who approached them,” he said.
On the contempt charges that he is facing from Congress, Villar said: “Go ahead, arrest me.”
“I would only go if I get word that we are going to be treated as resource persons on smuggling, which was why we were invited in the first place and why I sent all our PASG personnel. In the last three hearings, we were the ones who were being investigated. I find that unfair. Nagtatrabaho naman kami ng husto (We were working hard),” Villar said.
Car dealers in Cebu had expressed dismay over the failure of the customs bureau there to stop car smuggling.
Jose Manuel Cuenco, president of the Cebu Auto Dealers Association (Cada), said there is a plan to form a broader coalition composed of business associations and cause-oriented groups to stop car smuggling.
“We don’t see any results from their investigation yet. It is already too frustrating that the government fails to address the problem on smuggling,” said Cuenco. By Tonette Orejas, Jolene Bulambot - Inquirer Central Luzon Desk, Visayas Bureau
Labels: Olongapo City, pasg, pgma, Subic Bay, villar
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