The Bureau of Customs (BoC) has seized P15 million worth of “ukay-ukay,” or secondhand, clothes smuggled into the country from Hong Kong, Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon said Thursday.
According to Biazon, the illegally imported used clothing arrived at the Manila International Container Port (MICP) in three 40-foot container vans.
“Let me remind all traders that importation of used clothing is not allowed under our customs laws,” the BoC head said when he presented the shipment to media on Thursday.
“We shall enforce these laws to the fullest, if only to protect the local market and to help secure the public from the health hazards posed by the importation of used clothing,” he added.
Biazon said that the consignees of the cargo had misdeclared the items as housewares, carpets, bags, toys, children’s books, assorted lamps and furniture.
He identified them as Rosvie Enterprises and Javezon Trading.
Biazon warned smugglers that their “usual tricks and deception schemes” would no longer work at the BoC because the X-ray scanners now installed at its ports were “three times more powerful” than those being used in the United States.
He said the BoC has 30 X-ray machines—seven of them installed at the MICP, six at the Port of Manila and the rest in ports all over the country.
MICP district collector Ricardo Belmonte said the ukay-ukay clothes were discovered using the X-ray machines at the MICP.
He added that the owners of Rosvie Enterprises and Javezon Trading would be charged with violating the law prohibiting the importation of used clothing and the Tariffs and Customs Code of the Philippines.
Lawyer Lourdes V. Mangaoang, head of the BoC X-Ray Inspection Project, said the machines were instrumental in foiling smuggling and bringing in more revenues.
“This new technology does not only allow us to do nonintrusive inspection through [the machines’] high-tech scanning capabilities but it [also] enables us to do the scanning of a 40-foot container van within 15 minutes,” she added.