The Customs intelligence chief of the Port of Manila has been charged before the Office of the Ombudsman for alleged involvement in the questionable release of three container vans of wax worth more than P5 million in September last year.

Criminally and administratively charged was Maj. Camilo Cascolan Jr., head of the Enforcement and Security Service-Operations and Intelligence Office.

The case stemmed from the complaint filed by Romualdo Dolores and Felizardo Belga, intelligence officers of the Finance Department-Revenue Integrity Protection Service; a preventive suspension was also sought against Cascolan.

Records showed that on Aug. 11, the 20-foot container vans loaded with 2,400 bags of wax arrived in Manila consigned to American Jeans and Sportswear Inc. for warehousing and reexporting to China.

Cascolan placed the shipment under surveillance on Sept. 17 after no entry was filed within the allowable 30-day period.

Customs police division head Col. Jose Yuchongco issued a mission order to ?monitor the shipment and intercept it if circumstances warrant.?

On Sept. 23, the shipment was released after Cascolan ordered the surveillance withdrawn when another consignee, ELDT Trading, filed a belated consumption entry.

Cascolan failed to submit the required After Mission Report.

Also attached in the complaint was an affidavit of four ESS agents who recanted their signatures affixed on a Nov. 13, 2008 memorandum addressed to Cascolan on events leading to the shipment?s release.

The four were identified as Joseph Michael Dayrit, Daniel Nalus, Teofilo Alain Alqueza and Lawrence Rivera.

Yuchongco referred Cascolan?s case to the Finance watchdog.

?The respondent himself requested the said mission order necessarily renders his subsequent turn-around all the more unacceptable, bizarre and mind-boggling,? stated the complaint. Joel E. Zurbano and Lawrence Agcaoili