BIR AT CUSTOMS PA-PRIVATIZE NA NI PNOY PARA MA-CORNER NILA ANG EKONOMIYA NG PINAS!

3 ex-Customs execs eye Biazon’s post

By Joel E. Zurbano | Posted on Apr. 14, 2013 at 12:01am | 214 views

Two former deputy commissioners of the Bureau of Customs and a congressman from Mindoro are allegedly jockeying to replace beleaguered Customs Commissioner Rufino Biazon who has come under fire for rampant smuggling and the agency’s repeated failure to meet collection targets.
The Customs official, who asked not to be identified for fear he might be suspected of being interested in a higher position, identified the former Customs officials are deputy commissioner Horacio Suansing and deputy commissioner Peter Manzano.
Aside from the two deputy commissioners, the source said Mindoro Oriental Rep. Reynaldo Umali, who was also a deputy commissioner before he entered politics, is also supposedly interested in replacing Biazon.
Umali was one of the House prosecutors in the impeachment trial of ousted Supreme Court Justice Renato Corona while Suansing is a nephew of Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago. Manzano, on the other hand, is associated with Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa.
“The people close to Deputy Commissioner Manzano are now looking for more allies in Malacanang for him to be appointed and take over the post, while supporters of Dep. Com. Suansing are seeking recommendation from Liberal Party officials, especially its president (Local Government Secretary) Mar Roxas,” the source said.
On Friday, ABS-CBN News reported that Biazon named former deputy commissioner Gallant Soriano as being behind the demolition job against him, but Soriano denied seeking Biazon’s ouster.
The source made the revelation shortly after Malacañang spokeswoman Abigail Valte said in an interview with a government radio station that the Palace is indeed considering an option to privatize the Bureau of Customs, but the matter was still in the initial stages of discussion.
“From what I understand from [the] commissioner, that is one of the suggestions [but] the discussions are initial,” Valte said on dzRB radio.
Valte’s made the remark three days after President Aquino himself said on Wednesday that the administration is planning to implement an unspecified plan to purge of the bureau of corrupt officials.
The Chief Execurtive did not specify plans but he said Biazon was aware of the plans and the Palace was only considering the timing of the action.
“Just wait for the long-planned solution so that we can ensure that all Customs officials are not corrupt,” Aquino said during the groundbreaking of the Roxas Airport Development Project in Roxas City in Capiz on Wednesday.
Last month, Biazon himself told members of the Makati Business Club, Management Association of the Philippines and the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines that the administration was crafting plans to abolish the BoC as a government agency and privatize it.
The idea to privatize the Customs burea, as well as the Bureau of Internal Revenue, was first suggested by the World Bank and International Monetary Fund when the Philippines was beginning its exit program from the IMF during the administration of former President Joseph Estrada.