Cagayan car traders cry foul: What seizure?
By Melvin Gascon
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.
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.
An obscure company, whose ownership is cloaked in secrecy by a layer of corporations and a battery of lawyers belonging to the Pecabar law firm founded by Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile, is the private partner of the Cagayan Export Zone Authority in developing Port Irene in which the government has poured more than P5 billion over the last five years.
Let them investigate, including diving in 15-meter-deep water to examine the breakwater in Port Irene, Cagayan province, they won’t find anything, Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile said on Tuesday after Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago asked the Department of Justice (DOJ) to look into his connection with the company that built the P5.101-billion project.
Senate Minority Leader Juan Ponce-Enrile on Tuesday admitted knowing the contractor that had allegedly cornered the bulk of the P5.101-billion funds for Cagayan Freeport, but denied any financial dealings with her or pocketing a single centavo from the project.
A big-time contractor, who has close personal and business ties to the former chief of staff of Sen. Juan Ponce Enrile and her family, cornered the bulk of P5 billion in state largesse given to the Cagayan Freeport in Sta. Ana town, Cagayan province, in the last five years.
The Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (Ceza) allowed importers to bring used cars into the country once more, and a shipment was scheduled to arrive on Dec. 14 at Port Irene in Santa Ana town in Cagayan province.
For people unfamiliar with it, any mention of the Cagayan Special Economic Zone and Freeport (CSEZFP) immediately brings to mind a visual comparison with the more familiar Subic Bay Freeport in Zambales.
A group of used-car dealers has warned of a possible disappearance of imported vehicles here in what could be a repeat of the supposed mistake that the government committed in handling the importation controversy at Subic Bay Freeport several years ago.
A shipment of 446 used luxury cars, sport utility vehicles, sedans and vans arrived at Port Irene here on Saturday, even as a controversy continues to rage over the legality of such importations in the face of a Supreme Court ban and despite a moratorium that the government has issued against their registration.
