Saturday, December 15, 2007 BOC officials face plaints for P420T pilferage
A BUREAU of Customs (BOC) official is facing criminal and administrative complaints for allegedly pilfering more than P421,000 worth of seized imported wristwatches in 2005.
The complaints were filed Thursday with the Office of the Ombudsman Visayas.
Similar charges for violation of the anti-graft law, malversation of public Property and Misconduct were filed against another BOC official for allegedly failing to secure the seized items.
The watches were already scheduled for public auction and, therefore, were government assets.
“The result of the reinventory (of the seized items) revealed that a total of 949 pieces of wristwatches, with a floor price of P421,201 were missing,” read the complaint prepared by Supervising Agent Renan Oliva, for National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) Regional Director Medardo de Lemos.
According to the NBI, one Jane Maye ordered the items, contained in boxes, brought out of a customs-bonded warehouse at the U-Freight building in Lapu-Lapu City on the pretext of public viewing.
That time Maye wasa customs operations officer III at the BOC Sub-Port of Mactan.
The boxes were brought to the conference room of the BOC office in Mactan and then, allegedly in the presence of a witness, stuffed some of the watches inside her pocket.
Three days later, she allegedly ordered that the items returned to the warehouse. But not all of the boxes were returned.
The items were brought back to the warehouse where the second respondent, Warehouseman Cirilo Arong, did not check if all the watches were returned.
Atty. Lourdes Ma-ngaoang, former Cebu BOC collector, filed the complaint.
Based on her complaint, the wristwatches were auctioned off in December 2005. A total of 5,858 pieces, with such brands as Seiko, Guess, Citizen and Casio G-Shock, were listed in the inventory.
The seized shipment, according to Mangaoang’s complaint, would have fetched the government at least P2.6 million in revenue.
However, the auction did not push through because the pilferage was discovered.
Oliva, in the course of the investigation, was able to locate the driver of the multicab used to transport the items and the janitor that Maye allegedly brought with her when she had the boxes taken out of the bonded warehouse and to the conference room of her office.
Edgardo Domingo, a resident of Cordova town, said he drove the vehicle last Dec. 20, 2005 and returned three days later.
He has no official ties with the agency. He admits to being an “errand boy.”
Jonald Amistad, meanwhile, was the agency-supplied janitor who loaded the boxes containing the wristwatches from Domingo’s multicab to the conference room on the second floor of the BOC-Mactan office.
He said the items were just left inside the room that day.
Maye came back for them the following afternoon with three other people—a fellow customs official and two interested bidders.
Amistad said he was tasked to open the boxes. The counting wasn’t finished that day. Maye and the bidders, together with a technician, came back the following day, he said.
During the inspection, Maye allegedly had Amistad remove one of the boxes he placed on the table. She then had him open it whereupon he saw her take some of the watches and place them in her pocket.
U-Freight Station Manager Vicente Tacocong Jr., in a letter to Isidro Estrera of the Enforcement and Security Service, that their records show that Maye removed 21 cartons of watches from the building around 2 p.m. last Dec. 20, 2005.
In the same letter, he said her records showed Maye returning only 11 cartons around 10 p.m. three days later. (KNR)
