Philippines wages war on crooked customs agents

AFP, Manila :
Standing near mountains of goods destined to be smuggled through the Philippines’ biggest port, the nation’s customs chief admits that being on the frontline of the president’s war on graft is overwhelming.
“I’ve never seen anything like it,” John Sevilla said, commenting on a pervasive culture of bribery, extortion and stealing at a government agency that collects revenues equivalent to 20 percent of the nation’s budget.
“There’s no secret about the fact that this is not an agency which inspires a lot of trust and confidence among our people.”
But Sevilla, a former Goldman Sachs executive, has bold plans for systemic change that are showing early signs of success.
President Benigno Aquino, who has made fighting graft a central tenet of his administration, appointed Sevilla to head the bureau in December last year after launching a scathing verbal assault on customs personnel.
“Where do these people get the gall,” Aquino said in his annual State of the Nation address as he accused customs staff of “heedlessly permitting the smuggling of goods, and even drugs, arms and other items”.
Aquino said customs personnel’s greed cost the country at least 200 billion pesos ($4.6 billion) in lost revenues each year-at least two percent of the country’s economic output.
Several months later, the then-customs chief resigned after being charged over a separate corruption scandal involving the alleged theft of government funds.
He was replaced by Sevilla, who was then a finance undersecretary and well regarded for his earlier career with global financial giants, including Goldman Sachs in Hong Kong and Standard & Poor’s in New York.
“I was not prepared for this. I was not prepared to come into customs at all,” the 45-year-old said, holding his head in mock woe during a recent tour of customs headquarters and Manila’s main port.
Tens of thousands of containers are stacked at the port, and Sevilla pointed out that overwhelmed customs staff inspect, on average, just 0.1 percent of them.