A group of car importers based at Port Irene in Cagayan province protested on Saturday statements made by the Bureau of Customs which they said portrayed them as car smugglers.
The Bureau of Customs (BOC) has seized 38 secondhand vehicles from an imported car dealer in Cagayan province, thwarting an attempt to illegally take them out of the Cagayan Special Economic Zone and Freeport (CSEZF) in Port Irene, Santa Ana, Cagayan province.
When construction began for the breakwater at Port Irene in the fishing village of Casambalangan in Santa Ana, Cagayan, residents felt no excitement about the new infrastructure project in their neighborhood. But when news broke last week that the project was worth P5.101 billion in taxpayer money, their jaws dropped.
Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile’s senior partners in his law firm, Pecabar, have invoked lawyer-client confidentiality to keep under wraps the true identity of the private partner of the Cagayan Economic Zone Authority in the government’s project to develop Port Irene.
Government lawyers were a no-show in Friday’s hearing to defend the government’s position to enforce a ban on the importation of used vehicles.
