No More Task Forces

by Ducky Paredes
from MALAYA

“There is also a greater possibility of abuse, graft, corruption and bribery in a task force than in a regular government agency” – Ducky Paredes

Whoever the next President will be, he has to learn from the mistakes of the past. For instance, it is clear that giving task forces major jobs – such as the one assigned to the Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group (PASG) to stop smuggling – is clearly not the way to go.

The problem with task forces is that they do not fit in with the rest of the government, which do their work within certain parameters. Task forces are operational units that report directly to the President. Thus, they find no need to coordinate with the rest of the government or even to go through channels. They are legally created gangs of often disreputable agents.

This wreaks havoc on the rest of the government, which, most of the time, will be working at cross-purposes with the task force, especially when the task force operates as most do, as if they were as powerful as the appointing power.

There is also a greater possibility of abuse, graft, corruption and bribery in a task force than in a regular government agency.

I am surprised and amused that graft charges have been filed by the Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group (PASG) against Chief State Prosecutor Jovencito Zuño and four of his subordinates.

The charges arose out of the dismissal of a jewelry smuggling case that the PASG had filed against a British national, Siu Ting Alpha Kwok.

What was amusing about this was that PASG director Jeffrey Patawaran was apparently assigned to discuss the case before media: “The charges and petition for the preventive suspension of the ranking officials of DOJ were triggered by their alleged malicious dismissal of the smuggling case against Kwok and the premature release of their resolution.”

But wasn’t Patawaran in an earlier press release of the PASG supposed to be under suspension himself, on orders of PASG Chief Antonio Villar Jr. himself for allegedly having slapped and kicked Atty. Bonifacio Alentajan, the lawyer of smuggling suspect Alpha Kwok? The incident happened during a hearing at the Integrated Bar of the Philippines.

Incidentally, this is not the first case of PASG personnel using physical violence against people who cross their paths. Some time ago, several bodyguards of the PASG Chief reportedly mauled a businessman at the Dusit Hotel in Makati City.

The businessman’s only fault was that he had a full bladder and insisted on going inside the hotel’s comfort room to relieve himself. The PASG bodyguards physically prevented him from entering since their boss was in there, “conferring” with somebody. If everything was on the up-and-up, why hold a “conference” in a men’s room?

The businessman-victim had to be hospitalized because of the injuries he suffered from the beating, but desisted from filing charges against Villar’s men.

In the present case, if Patawaran himself was under suspension, what was he doing speaking for the PASG against the DOJ prosecutors and agitating for their preventive suspension? Or was his supposed suspension just a scripted moro-moro?

This puzzling twist in Patawaran’s fate reminds me of the dismissal order Villar imposed on PASG Strategic and Information Chief Rommel Javier, last December. Javier was ordered booted out purportedly for his “involvement with the robbery-extortion gang preying on importers nationwide.”

So now I have to pose these questions. What happened to that dismissal order? Were criminal charges filed against him as reported? Is Javier really out of the PASG? Is he an organic member of the PASG at all? If not, and if he was merely on detail with this agency, was he simply sent back to his mother unit?

What really happens to the too many cases of PASG people being involved in shenanigans who were supposedly suspended and investigated. After the initial reports, there are never any further announcements about what happened next!

What happened, for instance, to his bodyguards involved in that Dusit Hotel mauling incident? Or to the more than a dozen PASG operatives who were also ordered investigated for their role in the mysterious disappearance of replicating machines and other equipment and materials confiscated from an illegal producer of optical media materials?

The seized items were purportedly worth more than a hundred million pesos. They were spirited out from the raided building while under the custody and tight watch of the PASG. No report of the investigation was ever made to the media or even to the Optical Media Board, which the PASG unjustly accused (without proof) of receiving a P10 million bribe in connection with the case. Was that just a smokescreen to hide what really happened?

Are these announcements of investigations, dismissals and suspensions being made merely to lull the public into believing that the PASG is earnestly doing everything to rid itself of the undesirables in its rank?

Or is the real situation is that PASG’s Villar cannot suspend anyone whose original appointment in the government service was not issued by the PASG chief himself.

Executive Order No. 624 which created the PASG, seems to indicate that Villar has no power to appoint anyone..

Section 2 of the EO simply states: “The PASG shall be composed of elements from the Philippine National Police (PNP), Philippine Coast Guard (PCG), National Food Authority (NFA), Philippine Maritime Authority (MARINA), Philippine Ports Authority (PPA), Philippine Navy (PN), Bureau of Food and Drugs (BFAD), and Bureau of Customs (BOC) as well as from other government agencies that may be needed by the PASG in the performance of its functions, as determined by the Head of the PASG.”

Even the Special Team of Prosecutors created to handle its cases is made up of people from the DOJ who are merely detailed to PASG. So, on the matter of the PASG’s announced dismissals, investigations and suspensions, is the PASG only fooling the public since it has neither the power nor the inclination to discipline any of what in other government offices would be considered as misfits in an honest civil service?

In any other regular government agency, miscreants such as what PASG has in great numbers would have been fired from the service a long time ago.

Task forces just do not do the job!

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