‘In Between Columns’

The congressional inquiry on alleged smuggling of luxury cars in Cebu hanged like a Sword of Damocles over Customs Cebu people as they celebrated their Christmas party last December 19, 2007.

Heavy rains drenched the Customs building grounds right when the program began to  heat up that evening adding to the cold chill that District Collector Boysie Belmonte described as "being frugal."

In past years, the Customs Christmas party is a time when importers and brokers personally flock to the customs building with their personeros brings loads of Christmas gifts.

Curiously, no broker nor importer showed up that night.

In my view, the volume of imports has not really met expectations — meaning much lesser collections for the government and "tara" for everybody.

Come to think of it, most imports in Cebu are vehicle replacement parts used for assembling multicabs and small trucks.

Multicabs are the small vehicles bought by many middle income Cebuanos and used by most Small-Medium Enterprises (SME) in Cebu.

However, the lobby of the Cebu Auto Dealers Assn. (CADA) and the congressional inquiry have led to the non-approval of certificate of payments of newly-assembled multicabs here in Cebu.

"Di na mahalin ang mga multicab in favor of the giants like Toyota and KIA," said one importer.

The controvery is far from over. With the second hearing sked still not set, we expect each side to the controversy relaxing a bit for the holidays.

Perhaps the international pro-press freedom group Committee to Protec Journalists  should include the Philippines in its list of countries with jailed journalists (in an Associated Press article featured in www.truthout.org  (of more specifically http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/120607I.shtml) for arresting journalists who covered the recent Manila Peninsula incident.

This will include the Philippines in a lineup of countries notorious for violating human rights like Cuba, Eritrea, Iran and Azerbaijan.

However, there is one democratic country that has jailed two journalists for years now without any charges — the United States.

According to the AP article reprinted in truthout.org:

"Associated Press photographer Bilal Hussein, who has been
  held by U.S. forces in Iraq for nearly 20 months, and Al-Jazeera cameraman Sami
  al-Haj, who has been jailed for five years at the military prison camp in Guantanamo
  Bay, Cuba.

    Hussein, who was part of a team of AP photographers who shared a Pulitzer Prize
  in 2005, was seized by U.S. forces in Iraq in 2006.

    The military has declined to provide details of the accusations against him
  but has said he had links to insurgent groups in Iraq. The Pentagon recently
  said it intends to submit evidence against Hussein to the Iraqi judiciary system
  on Dec. 9.

    AP executives said they have seen no evidence that Hussein was anything other
  than a working journalist.

    Al-Haj, who is from Sudan, was detained by military forces in Pakistan in 2002
  as he tried to enter Afghanistan to cover the war there. He was turned over
  to the U.S. military, which classified him as an enemy combatant and accused
  him of transporting money in the 1990s for a charity that provided funding to
  Chechen rebels.

    Pentagon spokesmen have said in recent interviews with the AP that al-Haj’s
  detention had nothing to do with his status as a journalist or the content of
  his reporting."