Explain missing vehicles, 40 locators told

SUBIC BAY FREEPORT—A top customs official on Friday gave 40 Subic locators a week to explain how 1,800 imported secondhand vehicles had vanished while under their custody.

“We are requiring these locators to account for the missing vehicles in their yards. They have to submit documents to explain where these vehicles are now, or else face charges,” Errol Albano, chief of the Bureau of Customs at the Subic port, told the Inquirer.

The missing vehicles were part of the 2,907 used cars inventoried by officials in 2007. These were placed in storage yards by their owners after the government banned the sale of imported secondhand vehicles. The ban, contained in Executive Order No. 156 issued by then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo in 2007, was in compliance with new tariff agreements that took effect that year.

However, a new inventory, conducted by the Bureau of Customs and the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority, could no longer account for the 1,800 used cars, Albano said.

“We want to hear their (importers’) side, so they could explain the whereabouts of these vehicles,” he said.

One theory that the government is seriously evaluating is that the missing vehicles could have been “re-exported, because their importers were not able to sell them after the executive order was issued,” Albano said.

“The locators here [may have] resorted to re-exportation. Our initial assessment of the records shows that in 2009, there were 300 vehicles in the [government’s inventory list of] controlled vehicles which reflected that these items were re-exported. We only want these companies to provide proof if that was what happened [to the missing vehicles],” he said.

Albano clarified that the customs officials had not confiscated the used vehicles, which were affected by the executive order.

“The [imported secondhand vehicles] were merely put in the controlled list. The importers will still use these vehicles inside the free port zone, or trade them within the free port, or re-export them to another country,” he said.

Daisy Caguin, a broker representing several vehicle importers here, said many importers had actually completed the sale of their car inventories before EO 156 took effect.

However, some of the newly sold vehicles may have been parked in their respective yards in 2007 when customs officials made the inventory. These vehicles were among those included in the controlled list, she said.

“I hope [the customs officials] realize that a lot of these vehicles were already paid for even before the executive order [was issued]. We welcome [a fresh inventory] because we can show proof of those (sales transactions that took place before government imposed the prohibition),” she said.

But she said she could not say whether the missing 1,800 used cars were those sold before the ban took effect.

“Before 2007, the government allowed the importation of these vehicles, and then suddenly it [changed its rules]… without protecting the investors who bore the brunt of the change in policy,” she said.

Ryl Bangayan, another importer, said the government should offer the importers, who were forced to store their inventory of used cars, a tax amnesty to make up for their losses.

“These [imported vehicles] were bought in good faith by locators, and then we were suddenly left on our own to suffer [because of a change in policy by the government],” she said.

Albano said there could be used cars included in the government’s controlled inventory list “whose taxes and duties were already paid before the EO was issued.”