Barbers hits BOC officials: You are not fit for the job

Surigao del Norte Representative Robert Ace Barbers, who chairs the House committee on dangerous drugs, on Tuesday hit back at officials of the Bureau of Customs for failing to track the P6.4-billion shabu shipment in the country, saying they are "not fit for the job."

In his opening statement during the House inquiry, Barbers criticized the BOC officials for failing to monitor the shabu shipment from China, which was only discovered in a Valenzuela warehouse raid last May.

"In the first place, those drugs have passed right under their very noses, either undetected due to their gross incompetence of because their noses can only smell crisp bills and not crystals," he said.

"In other countries, these incidents would have all the officials resigning for delicadeza's sake. But hey, only [in] the Philippines as they say, our Customs officials are quick to pin the blame on another unqualified official under their command and hand-picked by them whose fault is that he wears a different uniform," he added.

Barbers, likewise, made an indirect criticism at Customs Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon's chief of staff, Atty. Mandy Anderson, who was also present at the hearing.

Anderson earned the ire of several lawmakers for calling Speaker Pantaleon Alvarez "imbecile" on her Facebook post.

She said her conflict with the Speaker started when he asked for the promotion of an "unqualified" customs employee. Alvarez had already denied lobbying for the employee's promotion, saying he merely gave a recommendation letter.

"There is no debate even among the Customs people that indeed the drugs came from their year. It is not anymore a question of how these drugs managed to elude detection, after all what would you expect if you have scandalously unqualified imbeciles occupying very high positions in the Bureau with nothing to show in their credentials except that for once, they were together fighting against 'corruption,' you say?" he said.

"These developments show that they are not fit for the job. Yet they have the balls to tell the Speaker that the longtime employee whom he endorsed for promotion is not qualified. Look who's talking," he added.

Anderson has already apologized for her post, saying, however, that it was her "freedom to express" her opinion about elected officials. — MDM, GMA News