The Philippines president has put the Bureau of Customs temporarily under military control amid a scandal after two huge shipments of illegal drugs slipped past the agency through the port of Manila.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
President Rodrigo Duterte made the announcement on Sunday in an expletive-laden speech in southern Davao city before an audience that included visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. At one point, Duterte made a rude finger gesture and uttered a profanity.
Duterte cited "a state of lawlessness" that he declared following a deadly 2016 bombing to justify putting the military in control of the customs bureau.
The agency's officials will be put on a "floating status" and required to conduct their work in a gymnasium in the presidential palace complex, he said.
The agency, which collects import duties and taxes for the Department of Finance, has more than 3000 officials, customs police and employees nationwide.
"Part of the lawless elements are there inside the Bureau of Customs," Duterte said.
"With this kind of game that they are playing, dirty games, I am forced now to ask the armed forces to take over."
Duterte replaced two of his most trusted men he had appointed to head the customs bureau after huge shipments of suspected methamphetamine slipped past through the agency last year and in July this year.
Congress is investigating how the drugs, which were declared as kitchenware and magnetic lifters, were smuggled out of the government's most tightly watched ports.
Duterte insisted his trusted appointees, Nicanor Faeldon and Isidro Lapena, were honest but said they failed to prevent the entry of the drug shipments due to long-entrenched corruption in the customs bureau.
Lapena and Faeldon both denied any involvement in the drug shipments but pledged to cooperate in congressional inquiries. Other customs officials and employees have not commented on Duterte's actions.
Australian Associated Press
