MANILA, Philippines — There are over 15,000 remaining abandoned balikbayan boxes that are set to be delivered to their rightful owners as the Bureau of Customs (BOC) finished the shipment for all boxes from the Ports of Manila and Davao.
The BOC made this statement as the agency and the Department of Finance (DOF) led the distribution of abandoned boxes from Port of Cebu to 30 overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) and their families on Tuesday.
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The BOC noted that of the 15,084 remaining boxes, with most of them coming from the Manila International Container Port or MICP (14,487 boxes) and Cebu (498 boxes).
“The Bureau of Customs, Department of Finance, and the (Department of Migrant Workers) will continue to coordinate to return the abandoned boxes to their families,” Finance Secretary Frederick Go said in a statement.
Go said that concerned agencies will continue to coordinate to expedite the distribution of the abandoned shipment.
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The BOC also reported that a total of 25,818 boxes have already been received by the OFWs and their families across the country as of Monday, March 23. Citing its latest data, the BOC said that 13,842 boxes were delivered from Cebu; 8,475 from MICP; 2,699 from Subic; 732 from Davao and 70 from Port of Manila.
“The DOF and BOC are advising the public, especially OFWs, to use legitimate freight forwarding companies to avoid these problems in the future,” the BOC added.
The BOC earlier said that there were a total of 140 containers containing thousands of boxes that had not been shipped to their rightful owners for months and even years following several complaints from the OFWs after consolidators did not settle rightful payments. /das