THE Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group (PASG) has ordered the relief of Supt. Ariel Palcuto as director of PASG-Cebu, effective last Wednesday.
Undersecretary Antonio Villar Jr., the PASG chief, clarified Palcuto’s relief has nothing to do with the officer’s recent misunderstanding with PASG operations director Edmundo Arugay over the raid on a tile shipment.
Palcuto confirmed his relief effective Oct. 22, as stated in an order signed by Villar.
“I readily accepted my relief because I am tired already. It’s hard to work with a group where there are several masters,” Palcuto said.
Villar, in a telephone interview last night, said it was the police that decided to pull out all its 57 officers detailed with PASG, allegedly because the PNP is undermanned.
These 57 police officers detailed with PASG were assigned in different parts of the country, including the ports of Subic, Manila and various assignments in the Visayas and Mindanao.
“Ariel (Palcuto) has no problem with us. He has good accomplishments as PASG-Cebu director, so that I want to make this clear that his relief is a PNP decision, not mine. I am only implementing the decision of the PNP,” Villar said.
He credited Palcuto with the seizure of P5 million worth of used clothing (ukay-ukay), a vessel named Takuyo Maru worth P12 million and about P20 million worth of used luxury vehicles.
Earlier this month, Arugay chided Palcuto for questioning, in media interviews, the authenticity of a mission order that asked the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) 7 to help a team from PASG Manila check a possible smuggling case in Cebu.
“If he had questions, he should have come to the head office,” Arugay said in that earlier interview. He had said it was Villar’s decision not to inform the PASG Cebu team about the mission.
In yesterday’s interview, Villar also said he has no problem with the PNP’s pullout of its officers. The PASG still has 20 National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) agents and dozens of detailed agents from the Bureau of Customs (BOC), Maritime Industry Authority (Marina), Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), Marines and Presidential Security Group.
“My group (PASG) is composed of agents from various government agencies. So, we have no problem even with the decision of the PNP to recall the details of some police officers to PASG,” Villar said.
When asked if Palcuto’s relief has something to do with his recent argument with PASG’s operations director Arugay, Villar said: “I want to disabuse the minds of the Cebuanos. If there was any misunderstanding, this was immediately patched up. Walang personalan at trabaho lang ang sa amin (We want to focus on work and not take things personally),” Villar said. (EOB)
