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[av_heading heading=’Faeldon: Corruption still exists in Customs ‘ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”]
BY PRINCE GOLEZ
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MANILA – Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon, now facing investigations over the shipment of P6.4 billion worth of shabu from China, claimed that corrupt activities exist in the Bureau of Customs.
Faeldon claimed to have heard about the “tara” system prior to his assumption into office.
“It is what I am trying to find out the truth about, this tara system,” the embattled official told the Senate on Tuesday.
Under the tara system, importers use grease money “in exchange for an uninterrupted facilitation of their trade,” he said.
Faeldon went on to explain his failure to immediately investigate allegations of bribery and corruption in the bureau.
“For the first six months, I was there working alone. It was very impossible for me to man more than 30 collection ports all over the country and, at the same time, conduct investigation on all these,” he said.
“So, I would like the Investigation Group to be primarily in charge [of] conducting investigation on these issues,” he added. “But, again, they have just assumed December and January. That’s why, admittedly, I failed to investigate.”
Faeldon also suspected that the people he was working with were also involved in the tara system. “So how can I designate them to conduct the investigation?” he said.
The Customs commissioner appealed to the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry to identify bureau personnel engaged in corrupt activities.
“I’ve been asking also all our importers and, up to this day, none among them have come up with a name of any official of the bureau who was asking for tara,” Faeldon said./PN
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