Crest- Compliance & Regulatory for Security & Trade

RAMPARTS
28 October 2019

CREST--the missing link in the Agri chief's management dashboard

It has been said that one cannot manage what he cannot measure.

Similarly, one cannot manage the risk caused by the entry of pork and pork products from ASF-affected countries unless s/he knows the magnitude of the meat imports that came in from these so-called ASF territories.

Secretary William Dar, who came in as top honcho of the Agriculture department when the ASF virus was sweeping Asia, Europe, and Africa, had to know the magnitude of the problem rather than be drawn into a politically-laced blame game.

Known for his quiet competence, he had to create a special unit in his own office, solely to get an unvarnished picture of the real situations on the ground--a commodity that is normally withheld from the knowledge of the Agriculture secretary by its own regulatory agencies.

Issuing Department Order No. 10, dated October 1, 2019, Dar created his department's Compliance & Regulatory Enforcement for Security and Trade (CREST) Office, and tapped retired police general Jonathan Ablang, to coordinate all anti-smuggling operations under the CREST.

Now on its 3rd week of operation, the anti-smuggling unit had already unearthed interesting albeit disturbing developments that were obviously withheld from Dar's and his predecessor's knowledge by agriculture and fisheries officials.

CREST has provided intelligence-based information to the Agriculture chief that caught off-guard even the department's own regulators. Before the CREST came into existence, some banned items slipped past the country's borders under the very nose of customs authorities and quarantine officers.

"Our 'soft enforcement' approach, coupled with sporadic 'hard actions' are both intelligence-driven, devised to eliminate abuse and to do away with the incidence of delay that are attendant to the 'hit and miss' approach which is based on hunches," stresses retired police general Jonathan Ablang, CREST anti-smuggling coordinator.

A review of the information and communication environment of the
Department of Agriculture (DA) will show that the DA chief is virtually truncated from the goings-on in DA's regulatory agencies. He gets no idea of what his bureaus and attached agencies do unless feed him by the latter. In short, the Agri chief gets to chew nothing more than what is voluntarily shared with him.

But what kind of fool is he who reports to his boss, his shenanigans, undoings, or mischiefs? Should we normally expect a thief to voluntarily report to the police his own act of larceny, or surrender his embezzlement, especially when the scale is grand, and the means conspiratorial?

Would we have unearthed the fact that some 11,600 metric tons of imported rice were unloaded in a non-existent seaport in Pampanga? Or, would we have noticed that thousands of metric tons of frozen mackerel, round scad, bonito, and moonfish were smuggled into the country despite the ban or prohibition? Or, the recently confiscated banned items from China that were unloaded at the Port of Manila?

These were all unearthed by CREST, albeit the means by which they were allowed entry and eventually cleared were long established practices, deliberately withheld from the DA Secretary.

Indeed, the CREST is turning out to be the missing button in every Agri Chief's--past and future, executive dashboard.

It is about time the tenurial system of the bureau heads vis-a-vis the appointment of department secretaries is revisited in agencies like the DA, DOTr, and other regulatory departments, lest, the Cabinet Member gets isolated and truncated from the information and communication loop if the bureau heads were not his choice.

He will virtually be caught in the eye of the storm vulnerable to be easily blown out to smithereens when the swirling convergences of his underlings' shenanigans and incompetence get out of hand.

When that happens, the unforgiving public will cry for blood, will demand for heads to roll, and the Secretary's outstanding record albeit untainted will have to be sacrificed to satisfy the mis-informed, let alone, mischievous crowd.

Unfair!