Relieve customs men
in smuggling hotspots
SUGAR LEADER ASKS NEW BOC CHIEF
BY CARLA GOMEZ

A Negros-based sugar leader yesterday called on newly-appointed Bureau of Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon to relieve customs collectors in major ports of the country identified as smuggling hotspots to boost the BOC’s anti-corruption drive.

Enrique Rojas, president of the National Federation of Sugarcane Planters, said, “While we should still watch out for smuggling by the shiploads, the modus operandi now has shifted to misdeclaration of goods in container vans with the connivance of corrupt Customs personnel.”

Rojas also cited the case of 2,000 container vans that vanished during transshipment from Manila to Batangas, and the unabated smuggling through the backdoor in Mindanao.

Bacolod City is a finalist for four national awards.

It is among the three finalists in Western Visayas for the National Gawad Pamana ng Lahi (an award for exemplary performance in local governance), aside from being once again a finalist for the Most Child-Friendly City national award.

It is also a finalist this year for the Most Business-Friendly City after having won the award from the Philippine Chamber of Commerce and Industry three times in the past.

Murder charges will be filed against a jobless man who allegedly strangulated his live-in partner to death, stuffed her body in a sack and threw it off the shorelines of Bacolod City near the Reclamation area Saturday.

City Police Director Senior Supt. Ricardo de la Paz said yesterday that the charges will be filed before the City Prosecutor’s Office against Jovrasky Clotes Jarin, alias “Jayson Flores”, 31, of Cavite City this week for the brutal killing of Aster Romero of Hacienda Makina in Silay City, Negros Occidental, and a resident of Brgy. 23, at the time of her death.

He said Jarin is set to make an extra-judicial confession today that will be used as evidence in the murder charges against him.