Senator Francis Escudero has urged the Bureau of Customs (BOC) to file smuggling charges against former Land Transportation Office (LTO) chief Virginia Torres for trying to negotiate the release of smuggled Thai sugar worth about P100 million.
In a statement, Escudero said the BOC should “send a strong message that the administration is serious in its bid to curb smuggling that even perceived administration allies will not be spared. Cases must be filed against her if indeed there’s evidence to prove that she intervened or is trying to intervene in an illegal shipment.”
Torres retired two years ago as head of LTO after figuring in a viral YouTube video showing her playing on a slot machine in an unnamed casino.
Escudero said the customs agency should take the cue from Malacañang that influence peddling will not tolerated by the administration.
On September 20, Presidential Communications Operations Office Secretary Herminio Coloma Jr. said Torres should be punished if there was proof against her.
In a Lower House Ways and Means committee hearing on September 21, BOC Intelligence Group (IG) deputy commissioner Jessie Dellosa said he could not confirm or deny the newspaper report alleging Torres paid a visit to the IG office to appeal her case, as the “matter is still under investigation.”
“I still have to check that information because, as far as I’m concerned, I was not interviewed,” Dellosa explained, referring to the report which quoted him as having confirmed the Torres visit to BOC.
Meanwhile, Escudero, who has been seeking a law against influence-peddling since 2007, said “If the BOC is fascinated in looking into the measly ‘padala’ of our overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), then the more it should be interested in pursuing the people behind the importation of 64 shipping containers of smuggled sugar worth more than P100 million.”
Senate Bill No. 118, which Escudero re-filed in 2013, states that “it shall be unlawful for any person to engage in influence peddling or the act of representing oneself, either orally or in writing, as being able, whether real or imagined, to influence, facilitate or assist another person having some business, transaction, application, request or contract with the government in which a public official or employee has to intervene.”
Torres last month reportedly pleaded for the release of the illegally imported sugar, which was not covered by import permits from the Sugar Regulatory Administration. The shipments were the subject of 24 alert orders of BOC’s IG.
