A Customs broker on Monday named officials of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) who allegedly divided among themselves some P27,200 “grease money” for each container shipment at the port.
At the continuation of House Committee on Dangerous Drugs probe into the P6.4 billion worth of smuggled illegal drugs, Ruben Taguba said there are people who texted him to collect tara, or grease money.
“This [P27,200 is needed for us to] skip inspection for the shipments and to expedite processing of documents and to avail ourselves of the benchmarking,” he said. Taguba added he is handling around 100 containers at any given week.
He identified officials who allegedly receiving the grease money are Customs Deputy Commissioner Teddy Raval of the Intelligence Group, Customs Intelligence Officer Teodoro Sagaral and District Collector Vincent Maronilla of the Customs Manila International Container Port; Director Niel Estrella of the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service, Director Milo Maestrecampo of Import and Assessment Service, a certain Major Gutierrez, who is already deceased, a certain Jayson and a certain Maita of the Formal Entry Division of the bureau.
He said there are still other individuals from the bureau who receive bribes from him every week.
For their part, Raval, Maronilla, Estrella, Maestrecampo and Saragal denied the allegations hurled by Taguba.
The lower chamber has granted Taguba a legislative immunity before naming BOC officials in the alleged corruption activities.
Taguba said of the P27,200 bribe money per container of shipment, P2,000 is allocated for the intelligence group, P3,000 for the port collector, P500 for the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service director, P500 for the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service district collector, P500 for the Enforcement and Security Service director, and P500 for the Enforcement and Security Service district command.
Ten thousand pesos is for the Import Assessment Service; P1,000 for x-ray; P200 for the Pier Inspection Division; P500 for the Formal Entry Division; P1,000 of the Assessment and Operations Coordinating Group and P7,500 for the section division.
For his part, Party-list Rep. Harry Roque of Kabayan said the revelation of Taguba only shows that “our collections in the BOC should double if done properly”.
“This discovery and admission only goes to show that we do not really know how much we should really be earning by way of Customs tariffs and duties,” he said.
“If only correct tariffs and duties are imposed and collected, then we would not have any budget deficit,” he added.
On May 30 members of the BOC and the National Bureau of Investigation personnel raided a warehouse in Valenzuela City and discovered the shipment of illegal drugs after receiving a tip from their Chinese counterparts. Taguba was the broker of the shipment.