The gall

Former Land Transportation Office chief Virginia Torres. INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

Let’s see. How did President Aquino berate the Bureau of Customs in his State of the Nation Address in 2013? “Saan po kaya kumukuha ng kapal ng mukha ang mga kawani sa ahensyang ito (Where do these people get the gall)?” he asked in a rather startling turn of phrase, as he held up the endemic corruption and deceit in the agency as the very antithesis of the clean, reformist governance that his administration is championing via “Daang Matuwid.”

Mr. Aquino should dust off those memorable words and direct them at someone who deserves the kind of public dressing down he gave Customs—that is, if he believes that his campaign against dirty deeds in government exempts no one and applies to friend or foe alike. His longtime friend, Virginia Torres, former chief of the Land Transportation Office, is back in the news, not for any edifying reason, but for the unseemly act of descending on Customs in connection with an illegal shipment, the proceeds of which, the Customs officers said she hinted at them, would be used for the 2016 election expenses of the ruling Liberal Party.

The shipment of 64 containers containing Thai sugar has been misdeclared as general merchandise and is not covered by import permits from the relevant government agencies. Its papers indicate possible dummy firms as its importers and beneficiaries. Its estimated value is over P100 million.

According to members of Customs’ Intelligence Group, Torres showed up to appeal for the release of the smuggled goods. She was accompanied to the IG office by another Customs officer, Jerry Ponce, said to be also from her province of Tarlac. To make her case, she allegedly dropped President Aquino’s name by saying, “We grow sugarcane at [Hacienda] Luisita… I lease land and we plant together”—words she confirmed saying in subsequent news reports. But she denies the more damning part, in which she allegedly insinuated that the shipment was intended for the 2016 polls. “Eleksyon naman (It’s for the elections),” she allegedly told Willie Tolentino, the special assistant to Customs Deputy Commissioner Jessie Dellosa.

Saan po kaya kumukuha ng kapal ng mukha si Virginia Torres? Let’s grant that the bit about the elections could be open to misinterpretation, or might even be an embellishment. She vehemently denies saying it. “Wala akong sinabing ganyan (I did not say anything like that). Tell Gen. Willie sinungaling siya (he’s a liar),” she told this paper in a text message. But what business did she have trying to lean on Customs for the release of illegal goods, and dropping Mr. Aquino’s name in the process?

Unless, of course, this behavior is par for the course for her—already second nature in one whose sturdy friendship with the highest official of the land provides her the assurance of, if not protection, at least a generous benefit of the doubt every time, no matter the scrape. In her short but controversial stint as LTO head, Torres appeared to have all but used up whatever goodwill that special friendship with Mr. Aquino had afforded her; she clung to her position as long she could, bowing out only after a video clip of her surfaced, showing her playing a slot machine at a casino. But apparently, in or out of government, the woman thinks she can still cash in any time on the fact that, as she put it, “We grow sugarcane at [Hacienda] Luisita.” How else explain her bizarre behavior, her fearlessness in associating herself, and the President’s name, with a shipment of illegal goods?

Mr. Aquino’s response to this latest controversy involving his “shooting buddy” is the standard twist on the nondenial denial. “Influence peddling is not OK,” he said in a TV interview. “If our friendship is based on her ability to use me, therefore we are not friends.”

Also: “Does it make sense for her to facilitate sugar smugglers that depress the prices of the products that she’s invested in?”

Is Mr. Aquino just thinking aloud, or is he playing lawyer to his friend? It is indisputable at this point that Virginia Torres has once again dragged his name, and that of his administration, through the mud. When it comes to erring people who are close to him, is a mild, at best indirect, admonishment all that he can manage? Maybe that’s where Torres gets her gall?