BOC chief denies coddling Customs e-services firm

Customs Commissioner Angelito Alvarez has denied the allegations in a compliant with the Office of the Ombudsman on April 19, that he has tolerated the operations of an internet-based used clothing network. Alvarez said, “Records will show that in the last ten months, the Bureau of Customs under my watch has seized 20 containers of used clothing with an estimated retail value of P60 million." The Customs chief also said the agency has filed 34 smuggling cases against big companies with claims of more than P50 billion. The anonymous complainants — supposedly employees of the BoC — accused Alvarez of favoring a firm named E-Konek Pilipinas and allowing it to act as conduit for the bureau without legal contract or public bidding. E-Konek said on its website that it is a BoC value-added service provider for electronic customs clearance documents. It also said it “is building and implementing the core customs application of the Philippine Bureau of Customs' latest computerization project – Electronic-to-Mobile (e2m) Customs," Also charged in the complaint are Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima and former Bureau of Internal Revenue Commissioner Guillermo Parayno Jr. The complainants allege that Alvarez and Parayno are both top officials of E-Konek, which identifies Parayno as its president on its website. The only other E-Konek official listed together with Parayno is Wilhelm G. Ortaliz, head of Business Development. Alvarez, however, claims that records would show that E-Konek has been working with the BoC since October 2007, before he, Parayno and Purisima assumed their respective "The alleged complaint they lodged with the Ombudsman, if indeed true, should be seen as a desperate ploy to derail the program of reform and renewal that we have begun to implement," Alvarez asserted. Purisima also denied the charges, saying that it is part of a concerted effort to discredit him on the back of their campaign against smuggling. — ELR/VS, GMA News