Bert Lina leaves his business empire to take over Customs

There seems to be no honeymoon period for the newly appointed chief at the Bureau of Customs.

Less than a week into his appointment, Commissioner Alberto  Lina is already on the defensive at his first press conference at the BOC, fielding questions about his vast business interests and their potential conflict with his new post.

Lina admitted owning 18 companies, six of which has direct transactions with the BOC.

“Immediately upon being advised of my appointment as Commissioner of the Bureau of Customs, I immediately met with the directors and officers of all my companies and announced my resignation from the chairmanship and vacated my seat as director of all the companies comprising the Lina group,” Lina said.

In his meeting with the media on Wedenesday, he announced that he and his family would divest their shares in the six companies that dealt directly with the agency: 2100 Customs Brokers Inc., LGC Logistics, U-Freight Phils Inc., U-Ocean Inc., E-Konek Pilipinas Inc, and Air 21.

E-Konek Pilipinas, as stated in its website, is building and implementing the core customs application of Electronic-to-Mobile (e2m) Customs, a computerization project of the BOC.

“Ida-divest ko talaga yun. Maski wife, oo, maski wife. Maski anak, basta dealing with the Bureau of Customs. Para wala nang agam-agam at masabi pa. 'Yun ang isang problema eh,” Lina said.

“So ina-assure ko ang public…na dapat level ang playing field,” he added.

The law provided that a public official or employee should avoid conflicts of interest at all times.
Republic Act No. 6713 or the Code of Conduct and Ethical Standards for Public Officials and Employees provides that “when a conflict of interest arises, he shall resign from his position in any private business enterprise.”

Lina has 30 days from his assumption of office to resign from such companies. He also has 60 days to divest himself of his shareholdings or interest.

When asked why he’d choose to let go of a business empire he has founded and built, Lina says, “I love this country more than anything else.”

GMA News Research looked into the companies of Lina and his family.

Lina and/or his wife Sylvia appeared as officers and/or stockholders in at least 19 companies registered at the Securities and Exchange Commission. Except for two, all these companies are part of the Lina Group of Companies (LGC), based on the company’s website.

All 19 companies are multi-million-peso businesses with authorized capital ranging from P2 million to P500 million. Most of these companies were registered with the SEC more than a decade ago.
Based on the latest available SEC documents, Lina is an officer in 18 companies: the chairman in 16, and a director in two.



He and his wife own majority ownership in 12 of these companies.

His daughters are co-owners and officers in six companies.

April Rose Arboleda is a director in two companies and Donna May Flavier is president in one and director of another three companies.  

Lucia Jane Lina is president of two companies and a director in three others. Bertha Ann Lina sits as director of three companies.

The new commissioner did not figure in the latest SEC records of Air2100 Inc. His wife and three of his daughters, however, are directors. Each owns 20 percent of the company.



Divest, buy back

This will not be the first time Lina will let go of his businesses. He said he did the same when he was appointed BoC chief during the administration of former president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo.

When he quit his post after five months as part of the Hyatt 10, he got his businesses back. The Hyatt 10 was composed of high-ranking government officials that resigned from the Arroyo administration following the Hello Garci scandal in 2005.

The law does not prohibit you from getting back your business, Lina said.  And after a year of leaving the government, he did.

Government contracts

Most of Lina's companies involve the movement of goods like freight forwarding and courier services.

He has companies which deal with travel and tours, radio and TV activities, catering and food services, business centers/call centers, and renewable energy.

The new commissioner also has two waste management companies.

Prior to his appointment, Lina’s various businesses have secured contracts with other government agencies worth Php 1.27 billion in at least 50 contracts from 2012 to 2014.

The biggest of these were three contracts for the deployment of automated election system equipment and paraphernalia to various parts of the country for the May 2013 National Elections.

The contracts totalled to Php 1.14 billion.

The government website Philgeps shows that these contracts went through public bidding.



Replying to issues raised about the contracts worth more than a billion pesos, Lina in a statement said,  “The COMELEC project was won in a public bidding participated in by around seven bidders, all leaders in its own right in the logistics and freight forwarding industry.  The bidding started at 10am and ended at 11pm on January 4, 2013.” – with Jun Veneracion/NB,GMA News