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Tuesday, August 09, 2005
Mayor suspects extortion in car dealer's arrest
CEBU CITY -- Cebu City Mayor Tomas Osmeña on Monday warned operatives of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group (CIDG) 7 against harassing businessmen after he suspected irregularities in the group's operations.
Osmeña statement follows Port of Cebu District Collector Ma. Lourdes Mangaoang's criticisms on CIDG for its raids and seizures of alleged smuggled goods.
"I got feedback that the way CIDG is handling the matter appeared to be an extortion attempt because it was handled in such a manner that they can arrest someone over the weekend. That to me is highly suspicious," the mayor said.
In a news conference, Osmeña said he also received derogatory reports about CIDG 7 Regional Director Oscar Catalan.
The mayor, however, offered no support for his charges. He only said he is worried about businessmen being harassed by enforcement agencies like CIDG, which arrested businessman Russ Jao last Friday night and seized a vehicle allegedly not covered by a search warrant.
"There are people in enforcement agencies who have bad habits. I'm sending this as a warning to them, bantay lang mo...CIDG's behavior in the past incident is highly irregular and suspicious," Osmeña said.
In reaction, the CIDG 7 denied committing any irregularity in raiding Jao's surplus shop last Friday night in Barangay Kinasang-an, Cebu City.
Chief Inspector Rex Derilo, who was designated by CIDG 7 Director Oscar Catalan to comment on the issue, also brushed off insinuations that the raid was made to extort money from Jao, proprietor of Sanix Surplus.
Derilo said a search warrant could be implemented anytime and, in the case of Jao, they wanted to avoid the information on the warrant being leaked.
They also expected that such allegation on extortion will be made, Derilo said.
He, however, said their conscience is clean and that they conducted an operation because they have a legal basis to do so.
That legal basis was provided by Regional Trial Court Judge Ireneo Lee Gako Jr., who issued the warrant last Friday afternoon. Mangaoang has threatened to file administrative and criminal charges against Gako, saying the search warrant was "used by the CIDG in its fishing expedition."
But Gako said Monday that the warrant was for violation of Section 1 of Republic Act 8506, which is still under his jurisdiction, and not for violation of the Tariff and Customs Code.
Section 1 RA 8506 states that "it shall be unlawful for any person to import, cause the importation of, register, cause the registration of, use, or operate any vehicle with its steering wheel right-hand side thereof in any highway, street or road, whether private or public or of the national or local government."
"It seems the customs is embarrassed why the vehicle reached (Kinasang-an), whether they know about it or not. The customs police and the CIDG should cooperate with each other. It's good that the court helped. I'm just surprised why they're defending (Jao)," Gako said.
Jao has questioned the seizure of the right-hand-drive Toyota MRS Sedan 2004 model when it was not covered by the warrant, but Gako said policemen discovered it in "plain view."
RA 8506 states that mere possession of a right-hand-drive (RHD) vehicle isn't illegal. What the law prohibits are the importation, registration and driving of RHD vehicles.
Director Luis Catibayan of the Bureau of Import Services (BIS) also explained that the importation of any parts of RHD vehicles, such as hoods and grills, is allowed.
Some vehicle parts importers in Cebu are reportedly planning to stop their business after the CIDG conducted raids on their establishments.
Catibayan said the government allowed the importation of used vehicles and spare parts because these are mostly used for public transport or for small businesses.
At City Hall, Osmeña said this is not the first time he received complaints about CIDG and how it arrests subjects of warrants on a weekend, "so they can put him in jail and squeeze money from them."
The Bureau of Customs under Mangaoang has said it has sole jurisdiction over imported vehicles. (LCR/JGA/JST/EOB/Sun.Star Cebu)
(August 9, 2005 issue)
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