FORMER US president George W. Bush made the term popular when a US-led coalition force invaded Iraq in 2003: shock and awe. It is also referred to as “rapid dominance,” when overwhelming power is displayed “to paralyze the enemy’s perception of the battlefield and destroy its will to fight.”
“Shock and awe” is obviously President Duterte’s intention when he announced the placing of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) under military control. The move shocked and awed not only elements of the Customs bureau but also traders, who stand to be the most affected by the order.
The Department of Justice, though, needed to clarify the order. “Putting the Bureau of Customs under the watchful eye of the AFP (Armed Forces of the Philippines) is a temporary measure to ensure that massive entry of illegal drugs, which threatens public safety, is immediately stopped,” Justice Secretary Menardo Guevarra said.
Two points: the move is temporary and the BOC will still be under civilian authority. While the BOC is now headed by a former AFP chief-of-staff in Rey Guerrero, he is now essentially a civilian. And the military would only be there to ensure that “massive entry” of illegal drugs through our ports would stop.
Before protesting, let us first see how the move will play out. After the previous setup did not prevent the smuggling of billions of pesos of illegal drugs, let us see if the result of this latest move would be different. Those concerned most, like traders, should monitor the goings-on at the bureau to ensure that the setup wouldn’t end up like government is burning down the house to smoke out a rat.
Corruption at the BOC is an age-old and complicated problem, so don’t ever think that it could be solved with a flourish, even if the “flourish” takes the form of the military being deployed there. Complex problems can’t be solved by simple solutions but only through deep study and painstaking effort.
In the end, government will have to look beyond the deployment of the military to the BOC and into more lasting and thoroughgoing actions. What would those actions be is the true test for the current dispensation.