Emergency power to split Customs 'integral' to war vs drugs: lawmaker

MANILA - The emergency powers for President Rodrigo Duterte to split the Bureau of Customs will be instrumental to the administration's war against drugs, the chair of the House ways and means committee said Wednesday.

The emergency powers, recommended to reorganize the supposedly corruption-plagued bureau, comes as "an integral component of the war on drugs," said Rep. Dakila Cua.

"We consider this a national emergency because the magnitude of the revenue lost is in the large scale saka it’s part of the war on drugs," he told ANC's Headstart.

The Customs bureau has been at the heart of legislative probes at both houses of Congress. A Lower House panel said former Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon “systematized” corruption within the agency, costing government about P43.8 billion in lost revenues.

Cua's committee report recommended that the Customs bureau be divided into 2 separate offices, which will be tasked with "(1) protecting and securing the national borders and (2) assessing and collecting duties and taxes."

The lawmaker said the panel is not asking Duterte to abolish Customs, and in fact suggested that Congress do it "cautiously" with consultation with stakeholders.

"We haven’t spoken with anybody outside the committee or outside Congress. We have not discussed this with Malacañang, the President did not ask for this function, the senators have not consulted with us or we have consulted with them," he said.

Cua is hopeful their counterparts in the Senate will adopt at least part of their recommendations and "work together towards rebuilding the bureau."

Although their report said Faeldon systematized the corruption in the bureau, Cua maintained that the committee was not trying to be personal, adding that it did not even want to personally file charges against the Customs officials.

"The leaders, Speaker (Pantaleon) Alvarez and Cong. (Rodolfo) Farinas, were never personal about anybody here. The only thing they’ve told me was that, ‘If you find corruption, you have to do something to arrest it, to stop corruption.’ That’s all we’re trying to do," he said.