It’s not just one tree

By JoJo Robles

Undersecretary Rico Puno has resigned from the Department of Interior and Local Government. But should this be the end of his story?

I hope not. And I hope that Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago does not jettison her investigation of Puno simply because the undersecretary has quit, as well.

Puno may have left his job to save his boss, President Noynoy Aquino, from being caught in a bind that the Chief Executive may never free himself from. But the questions that remain unanswered with Puno’s sudden departure still need proper and comprehensive replies.

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Sometimes, you miss the forest because you’re just looking at one tree. And just one solitary tree definitely does not an entire forest make.

Santiago has promised to unmask the “very powerful person” backing Interior Undersecretary Rico Puno during the investigation that she is starting in the Senate on Friday. This person, who is not based in Malacañang Palace, Miriam said, is the supposed reason why Aquino has not removed or punished Puno for his alleged failings, beginning with the hostage-taking fiasco that led to the death of eight Chinese tourists and a dismissed Manila policeman two years ago.

I can’t wait to find out if Santiago suspects that Puno’s backer is the same person I’ve written about some time back, apropos of the same Rizal Park hostage-taking. If it’s the same person, then Miriam may just unearth the sunshine-starved worms that could have already eaten away the wooden (and woody) foundations of the Aquino administration.

Indeed, the controversy surrounding Puno should not be limited to what the undersecretary did or did not do right after Secretary Jesse Robredo died. Even the power struggle in Malacanang between the Samar faction to which Puno belongs and the Balay group nominally headed by the man who wants him out, Mar Roxas, does not really constitute the bigger picture in this sordid political drama.

If Santiago is truly hell-bent on finding out the truth, she will look even beyond the allegations that Puno, the leadership of the Philippine National Police and even Aquino himself may have been involved in an attempt to make money out of the purchase of firearms for the country’s lawmen. And even if this supposedly pristine administration is exposed as yet another beneficiary of the illegal numbers game that is jueteng, that is still not the real story here.

No. The real story, if I understand where Miriam is taking us, has to do with how the Aquino administration has been held hostage by powerful people who were not elected with it —or who were even identified as its partisans in the beginning.

Knowing Santiago, she is not going to stop with Puno, the undersecretary. And it would be futile for Malacanang and its vaunted, well-funded propaganda machinery to contrive a suitable ending for Santiago’s investigation that would have Aquino looking as good as he always does.

Not this time.

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A Mandaue, Cebu-based company called Joyland Industries has been importing steel at prices below prevailing industry rates for scrap metal and yet its shipments routinely breeze through the Bureau of Customs in that province. For example, on May 9, Joyland brought in a shipment of 7,904.17 metric tons of finished steel wire rods with a declared value of $279 per metric ton when the prevailing value of steel wire rods sold by Russia during the period ranged from $640 to $700.

Last April, a shipment of similar steel wire rods entered the Port of Manila valued at $575 per metric ton. Because the product was priced below standard international pricing guides, the shipment was placed under investigation.

Joyland has been consistently undervaluing its Cebu importations for years. Post-entry audits from December 2006 to November 2009 alone showed that the total discrepancy in Joyland’s payment of duties and taxes amounted to PhP 125,959,793.57. From November 2009 to the present, Joyland imported additional undervalued products amounting to tens of thousands of metric tons because of the same lax treatment from the BOC District Collector for Cebu.

The Philippine Iron and Steel Institute, the Galvanized Iron Wire Manufacturing Association and other industry groups have written the Customs Commissioner and the Secretary of Finance complaining about the technical smuggling committed by Joyland with the apparent collusion of the Cebu Customs Collector. But these officials seem to agree with the standard excuse given by the Cebu Customs officials that the bureau determines taxes and duties on imported products based on what the importer declares as the value of a shipment, provided these are notarized by accredited lawyers.

These declarations are simply accepted at face value, if the Customs collector concerned chooses to do so, without using any other reference to cross-check them. This is almost an open invitation to corruption.

Joyland’s undervalued imports kill local industries.

Rampant technical smuggling does not only deny government billions in lost revenues. Smuggling, in the tight global economic environment, can also wipe out Filipino industries, together with jobs and economic opportunities for our people.