“Give us the names of big-time smugglers—not the small fry,” the solons are wont to demand (more often hollering) from customs authorities or even from the prosecutors during congressional probes.
But, wait! Isn’t smuggling a crime? As such, only the courts can adjudge or pronounce a person guilty of smuggling? The authorities of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) and the prosecutors of the Department of Justice (DOJ) can only investigate, do case build-ups, and whenever this thing called “probable cause” do exist, they file the smuggling case in the appropriate courts.
And before our courts, the desires, biases, and swagger of the BOC and the DOJ are of no moment. Only those evidence—relevant, material, and competent—that they proffer to the court matter. Pending the decision of the courts, no person can be pronounced guilty of the crime of smuggling, let alone be called a smuggler. As the Constitution exhorts, all persons shall be presumed innocent until the contrary is proved. And the Constitution is the “mother of all laws” and rules—even supreme than the Rules of Congress.
[U]ntil the courts have convicted the suspects, they are presumed innocent and are to roam free and treated guiltless. This is our sad reality.
Thrown Into The Gaol
For the solons to press their demand on the executive officials—BOC and DOJ, to submit to Congress the list of big-time smugglers is clearly off the mark—“wala sa hulog”. To repeat, only the courts can pronounce a person guilty of smuggling and thus be called smuggler.
No amount of badgering—even shaming, Customs will force the latter to submit “that list” of smugglers. No one in BOC will have the heart to label people as smugglers until they are adjudged guilty as such. They run the risk of ending in the calaboose for libel ahead of these people whose names the solons want to hear getting thrown into the gaol for the crime of smuggling.
We are not saying the BOC front liners are blameless. No! What we are saying is: until the courts have convicted the suspects, they are presumed innocent and are to roam free and treated guiltless. This is our sad reality.
The Probable Cause
Perhaps, what the solons can do while the DOJ prosecutors are hard pressed on finding “the probable cause” or the Courts proving the crime “beyond reasonable doubt” is to put to task the BOC leadership on why it continuously disregards Congress’s strict prescriptions in Section 412, 413, among others, that require all “entries” now known as “Single Administrative Documents” to be lodged, allowed, and/or processed only when filed/submitted “under oath” or under pain of perjury or falsification.
And, please, not by “fake notaries” that abound throughout the length and breadth of the metropolis, nay archipelago. After all, ICT-driven apps, I.e., techOATH and iSWEAR, among others, are now readily available in the technological bureaucracy.
Until this Oath requirement of the Customs Tariff and Modernization Act is done—or Congress wakes up from its deep slumber pursuant to its oversight powers both under Republic Act No 10863 (CMTA) or Republic Act 12023 (AntiAgricltural Economic Sabotage Act) the evils of “undervaluation,” “misclassification,” “misdeclaration,” and other frauds upon customs will continue to haunt us notwithstanding today’s and future quadcom, pentacom/quintacom, or whatever forum their fertile minds can concoct.
And the congressional probes? Well, “all sound, no fury,” many are wont to say.
