SENATOR Panfilo Lacson on Thursday filed charges of graft, smuggling or economic sabotage and grave misconduct against former Bureau of Customs commissioner Nicanor Faeldon before the Office of the Ombudsman.
Administrator Jason Aquino of the National Food Authority, former Customs lawyer-director Tomas Alcid, Custom liaison officer to NFA of the Office of the Commissioner Geniefelle Lagmay and Cebu Lite Trading Inc.’s officers Filomena Lim, Roger Lim Jr., Rowena Lim, Joselito Lopez, Josephine Rizalde and Ambrosio Ursal Jr. were included in the charge sheet for “conspiring to smuggle” 40,000 bags of rice, in two waves, to Cebu Lite Trading Inc. without payment of Customs taxes and duties and without the required import permit, as they supposedly used fake permits.
The senator said Aquino, Alcid and Lagmay must be held culpable for grave misconduct for their “flagrant disregard of the established rules of procedure of the BoC in allowing the smuggling of rice shipments.”
He called on Ombudsman Conchita Carpio-Morales to place Aquino, Alcid and Lagmay under preventive suspension.
The charges stemmed from the two shipments of rice that entered the country through the Port of Cagayan de Oro without necessary permits.
According to Lacson, the first shipment of 21,800 bags of Vietnamese long grain white rice worth $370,600 was on March 9.
A day after, another shipment of 18, 200 bags of the same rice worth $309,400 came in, he said.
“The complaint involved the smuggling of a significant volume of rice shipments consigned to CLTI, a domestic corporation duly registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission on 31 March 1997, with postal address at 14 G. Lavilles Street, Tinago, Cebu City,” the charge sheet read.
The shipments were declared “abandoned and forfeited” on April 26 in favor of the government and the NFA was ordered to dispose of the shipments.
But the NFA administrator ignored the order and even issued a certification and confirmation for the shipments on May 17. He also supposedly ordered that the import permits be backdated to the actual date of arrival.
“Administrator Aquino gave undue favor to CLTI… It must be emphasized that there is no law or NFA rule and regulation granting the administrator the authority to issue permits with retroactive effect, much more issue permits without the requisite payment of taxes and duties being made. This shows that the issuance of import permits by Administrator Aquino in favor of CLTI was highly irregular, illegal, and ultra vires (beyond his powers),” Lacson’s complaint read.
The senator maintained he is clean, and denied that he filed cases because he had an axe to grind against Faeldon, who accused Lacson’s son of involvement in cement smuggling.
He said Faeldon could face life imprisonment if found guilty.
The former BoC commissioner backed Aquino’s advice and directed the release of the two rice shipments to CLTI.
“In other words, in this case, the government was deprived of the use and benefit of the abandoned shipments valued at $680,000.00, or P34,043,520.00, computed based on the prevailing exchange rate of P50.064 to $1,” the complaint said.
Lacson said this was only the first of several complaints he would file against Faeldon.
“We are compiling evidence to file more cases. We have painstakingly collected documents from the Bureau of Customs, along with sworn affidavits,” he said.
The complaint Lacson lodged before the Ombudsman Thursday stemmed from the entry of rice worth P34.043 million, without the required import permits, last March.