Even if everything was above-board with the 16,000 bags of rice intended for Isabel, Leyte, as relief goods for typhoon victims there, resigned Customs commissioner Ruffy Biazon should not have ordered its release on his last day in office.
The bags of rice, while destined for Isabel from Manila, were ordered held in Cebu where the ship carrying them had to make a scheduled stop to take on other cargo of relief items. The reason given was that the rice shipment lacked certain documents.
Days later, officials from Leyte vouched for the cargo and Biazon, who resigned on getting implicated in the PDAF controversy, ordered its release on his last day in office. He should not have done so because at the time he ordered the release, a new Customs commissioner was already named.
What Biazon did can be considered as a "midnight release" and should be no different from the midnight appointments that the Liberal Party, Biazon's political party, used to raise so much hell about in criticizing its political opponents.
To be specific, President Aquino, the nominal head of the Liberal Party, used to hound his predecessor Gloria Macapagal Arroyo over her appointment of Renato Corona as chief justice during her last days in office. So incensed was Aquino over this midnight appointment that he personally orchestrated Corona's impeachment.
But what appears to be bad for the gander is not necessarily so for the goose, because it appears that the "midnight release" of the rice has not raised the hackles of Aquino as much as the midnight appointment of Corona did.
Again, this is not about the rice shipment itself but about the impropriety of taking hasty action on a controversial matter by an outgoing head of office when a new head of office has already been named and ready to take over.
To use the same arguments raised against Arroyo in appointing Corona -- that she should have let Aquino name the new chief justice as he was at the time already poised to assume as president -- Biazon should just have let the matter lapse into the jurisdiction of his successor to avoid raising eyebrows.
On the other hand, perhaps it is just as well, as no eyebrows have been raised, or at least not high enough as evidence of genuine concern. Aquino himself may even be unaware of the incident, or could just be playing deaf. Biazon, after all, is a Liberal. In this country, double-standard sticks to your face.