Jinggoy is acting again

**Monseratto** · January 28th, 2006 08:30 AM

By Ramon Tulfo
Inquirer

ONE of those who grilled Customs Commissioner Napoleon Morales during the Senate hearing on the national budget Tuesday was Sen. Jinggoy Estrada.

Estrada gave Morales the most severe scolding for the alleged rampant smuggling at the piers and the customs zones. Customs zones are bonded warehouses outside the piers.

I snickered and nearly fell off my chair when I saw Jinggoy playing to the gallery in that Senate hearing.

I recall that during his father’s time, Jinggoy had then newly installed Customs Commissioner Ramon Farolan called to a meeting. Over lunch, he introduced to the incorruptible Farolan, a second-timer at the Bureau of Customs, the most notorious smugglers.

A few days later, the retired Air Force general resigned, citing health reasons although he was as strong as a bull.

The truth was Farolan didn’t want Jinggoy, his brother Jude, then President Erap’s “other” wife Guia Gomez, and other members of Erap’s extended family pressuring him to go easy on smugglers.

When Farolan was gone, it was a “free-for-all” at the piers and the customs zones, courtesy of then San Juan Mayor Jinggoy Estrada and his brother, Air Force Capt. Jude.

Used clothes arrived by shiploads. So did luxury cars. In fact, Jude allegedly drove out of the pier one such car without a customs clearance. The car was unloaded straight from a cargo ship.

Jinggoy and Jude reportedly used Philip Lee and Jun Manimtim as their brokers.

In an intensive anti-smuggling campaign during Erap’s time, then Lt. Gen. Jose Calimlim, head of Task Force Aduana, made a big catch.

A bonded warehouse owned by a Baby Tay was raided by “Aduana” agents. The agents seized a huge cargo of Ecstasy, a drug in the same category as—but much more damaging than— methamphetamine hydrochloride (shabu).

There was a big to-do over the drugs seizure. But Baby Tay was never prosecuted. And the Ecstasy tablets, which intensifies the *** urge of a user much like a cantaride, could not be accounted for later.

Guess who was behind Tay going scot-free and the seized Ecstasy tablets eventually ending up in the market?

So, as Jinggoy was pontificating at Tuesday’s Senate hearing, people in the know chorused, “Amen.”

**Isuzoom** · January 28th, 2006 09:59 AM

Ganyan talaga ang buhay, abusado sa pwesto. Luxury cars goes to Jinggoy, Race horses goes Mickey Arroyo yung mga Xtacy n Pills pati na ang DRESS kay Hair Force Capt. Jude Ejercito.