Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte puts customs bureau under military control after massive drug busts

The Philippine president put the Bureau of Customs temporarily under military control amid a scandal after two huge shipments of illegal drugs slipped past the agency through the port of Manila.

President Rodrigo Duterte made the announcement late on Sunday in an expletives-laden speech in southern Davao city before an audience that included visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi. At one point, Duterte made a rude finger gesture and uttered a profanity.

Duterte cited “a state of lawlessness” that he declared following a deadly 2016 bombing to justify putting the military in control of the customs bureau. The agency’s officials will be put on a “floating status” and required to conduct their work in a gymnasium in the presidential palace complex, he said.

The agency, which collects import duties and taxes for the Department of Finance, has more than 3,000 officials, customs police and employees nationwide.

“Part of the lawless elements are there inside the Bureau of Customs,” Duterte said. “With this kind of game that they are playing, dirty games, I am forced now to ask the armed forces to take over.”

Duterte replaced two of his most trusted men he had appointed to head the customs bureau after huge shipments of suspected methamphetamine slipped past the agency last year and in July this year. Congress is investigating how the drugs, which were declared as kitchenware and magnetic lifters, were smuggled out of the government’s most tightly watched ports.