Breaktime: We aim to freeze

While the boys at the Palace are still trumpeting the good ratings of the Philippine economy in recent business surveys, the business sector agonizes over a little malfunction in a critical government outfit: the Bureau of Customs.

At the moment, from what I gathered, nothing moves in the BOC. The processing of import documents is said to have come to a complete stop. Nobody in the bureau apparently wants to make any decision at the moment.

In business, particularly in the trading and manufacturing sectors, they are worried that the release of critical imports would be delayed. This in turn would add to the cost of doing business in this country of monstrous traffic jams, prohibitive power rates and uncompetitive wages.

So what is going on at the BOC?

According to our sources in the bureau, Customs Commissioner Rozzano Rufino Biazon—who resigned a couple of months ago, although our dear leader, Benigno Simeon (aka BS), turned down his resignation—recently issued a shotgun order to BOC personnel: They supposedly must return to their “permanent plantilla positions.” In effect, Rozzano Rufino revoked the present official designations of top BOC officials, canceling previous assignments or transfers.

In other words, they must return to their original units in the bureau, and the BOC chief gave them until Sept. 27 this year to do so—a deadline falling on this Friday.

With uncertainty hanging in the air, owing perhaps to the lack of clear-cut guidelines on such a considerable movement of personnel, the processing of documents in the BOC seems to be grinding to a halt.

It is turning out to be a “freeze” order. Nobody moves.

Anyway, the BOC of course became one of the favorite whipping boys in media after our dear leader, BS, castigated the entire bureau in public. He talked about the shameless personnel of the BOC, even hinting that, because of the massive corruption in the bureau, the government missed out revenues of about P200 billion a year.

After he made the public tongue-lashing of the entire bureau in his latest Sona, our dear leader, BS, announced to media that we could soon expect “radical” changes at the BOC.

The business sector is still waiting for those supposedly sweeping reforms in the BOC.

To think, the rah-rah boys of the Aquino (Part II) administration are busy spreading the good news about the Philippine economy under our dear leader, BS, referring for instance to a recent survey done by Thomson Reuter News and the global business and management school called Insead.

According to the survey for the third quarter this year, business confidence in the region deteriorated. The bright spot was the Philippines, which came on top with a reading of 100—up from 94 in the second quarter.

Still, business confidence is such a delicate commodity. Already, the business sector is expressing disgust over the trouble created by the government water authority MWSS for its two concessionaires, Manila Water and Maynilad.

The boiling issue over congressional pork also threatens to blow open the connection between the alleged fake NGOs of Janet Lim-Napoles and certain heavyweights in the Aquino (Part II) administration.

Our contacts in business are saying that the apparent confusion in the BOC can ruin manufacturing schedules which, in turn, will definitely take its toll on business confidence.

And there seems to be more trouble in the bureau. A career official in BOC, for instance, has been asking two successive customs commissioners to obey the orders of the Office of the Executive Secretary and the Civil Service Commission (CSC) to reinstate him to his former position. For the past three years or so, customs deputy commissioner Reynaldo Nicolas has been in limbo, having been booted out of the bureau in 2010 for allegedly lacking the required career executive service eligibility.

Appointed by the cute administration of Gloriaetta in 2004, Nicolas should now be the most senior among the deputy commissioners. Before his fall from grace under the Aquino (Part II) administration, he was the deputy commissioner for assessment and operations from November 2005 to September 2010.

The CSC ruled that he was illegally stripped of his position. A lawyer by profession before joining the government, Nicolas was among the top 10 passers in the 1983 bar exams.

At the onset of the Aquino (Part II) administration, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima and then BOC head Joselito Alvarez recommended Nicolas to become deputy commissioner for international administration.

It meant that somebody else should take his place in the assessment and operations, which, from what I gathered from BOC insiders, was actually a, well, more “juicy” position.

While his replacement got the position, Nicolas did not get his appointment as deputy commissioner for administration, a position that was vacant at that time.

In effect, the BOC interpreted the appointment of a replacement for Nicolas as his termination from the bureau. The only problem was that, there was no official order, no paper of any kind, regarding his termination.

Nicolas did not resign. He was not even asked to submit a courtesy resignation.

Both the CSC and Malacañang recommended to the BOC his reinstatement. He even obtained a clearance from the Ombudsman, confirming that he did not have any pending criminal and administrative case. In other words, the BOC had no reason to terminate him.

From what I heard, Nicolas is not getting paid as a government employee, since it was assumed that he has been terminated in the BOC. At the same time, the poor guy could not work in the private sector, practicing his legal profession perhaps because, according to the CSC, he is still a government employee.

To think, the alter ego of our dear leader BS, Executive Secretary Paquito Ochoa Jr. himself, already issued an order for the reinstatement of Nicolas in July 2011. This date is rather important in this story because, a few months later, the Palace appointed Ruzzano Rufino as customs commissioner. Ochoa issued another order to the bureau, this time under the new commissioner, to reinstate Nicolas.

The BOC boss did not bother to do anything. This is the kind of BOC we have these days.