[av_one_full first min_height=” vertical_alignment=” space=” custom_margin=” margin=’0px’ padding=’0px’ border=” border_color=” radius=’0px’ background_color=” src=” background_position=’top left’ background_repeat=’no-repeat’ animation=”]
[av_heading heading=’Customs loses 2 execs amid shabu shipment mess’ tag=’h3′ style=’blockquote modern-quote’ size=” subheading_active=’subheading_below’ subheading_size=’15’ padding=’10’ color=” custom_font=”][/av_heading]
[av_textblock size=” font_color=” color=”]
MANILA – Two officials of the Bureau of Customs resigned while the agency is embroiled in a controversy involving a P6.4-billion shabu shipment from China.
At the House ways and means committee hearing Wednesday midnight, Intelligence and Investigation Service director Neil Estrella disclosed that he has tendered a “courtesy resignation.”
Citing “delicadeza” and the “fight for [his] honor and integrity,” Import Assessment Services director Milo Maestrecampo also resigned on Tuesday.
Estrella submitted his resignation letter to President Rodrigo Duterte, with copies furnished to Customs commissioner Nicanor Faeldon and Finance secretary Carlos Dominguez.
Faeldon has yet to respond to his resignation, Estrella said.
Earlier, Estrella appeared at the Senate blue ribbon committee hearing where he admitted that he failed to observe protocol by not informing the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency immediately about the raid on the warehouse in Valenzuela City on May 25 that yielded the large shabu shipment.
Senate blue ribbon committee chairman Richard Gordon accused Estrella of incompetence and said his actions made the Customs bureau a “laughingstock.”
The lack of protocol may have rendered the shabu inadmissible as evidence, the Senate committee hearing found.
As for Maestrecampo, a broker accused him of taking bribes to facilitate the processing of shipments. He denied this. “I am not receiving money from illicit activities I am contented with my sahod (salary),” he said.
Customs and National Bureau of Investigation agents seized the 600-kilogram shabu shipment.
In a Senate hearing on the issue in July, Estrella said the shipment was declared as kitchenware by its importer, a company named EMT Trading.
The shabu was discovered in 605 bags stuffed into five cylinders. (With CNN Philippines and ABS-CBN News/PN)
[/av_textblock]
[/av_one_full]
