INQUIRER FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — Nine out of every 10 shipments of imported goods that pass through the country’s port are either misdeclared or undervalued, resulting in billions of pesos in lost government revenue, according to the Bureau of Customs (BOC).
In a report on its website, the Department of Finance-attached agency took this as its “90 percent success rate in finding problems.”
Customs Commissioner John Phillip Sevilla claimed the bureau’s five month-old reform project was “starting to work,” citing what he referred to as “encouraging initial results.”
He said they were encouraged by, among others, the bureau’s issuance of an undisclosed number of alert orders on shipments that were either misdeclared or undervalued.
“Ninety percent of these shipments had adverse or derogatory findings,” the former DOF undersecretary for privatization pointed out.
Sevilla said the bureau was “committed to closing all the gaps in the system to make it harder for our people to do the bad things and easier for them to do the good things.”
The BOC now has “zero tolerance for wrongdoings,” according to Sevilla, who also appealed to Customs stakeholders to “do their part in helping reform the Bureau of Customs by strictly complying with the law.”
He issued the warning after the agency suspended the accreditation of 70 trading firms and 45 customs brokers for alleged violation of importation policies and procedures.
In a statement, Sevilla explained “the importers and brokers we suspended habitually failed to provide detailed information about the goods they imported…That is tantamount to technical smuggling … We will no longer allow blatant violation of the law here at the Bureau of Customs.”
The BOC identified the suspended companies as Globe Telecom, Inc., Golden Seasons Corp., Foot Specialist Intertrade, Inc., Sunrise Bountiful Trading Corp., Apo Motor Sales, Cebu Sendai, Powertrade Industrial Sales, King’s Safety Net., Baxter Health Care Phils., Eleksis Marketing Corp., Golden Bat Far East, GWSI Fruits Commercial, Hamamoto Motor Trade Co., Orion Import Trading, Century Limitless Corp., Copperfield Marketing, Neuron Industries, Oceanway Import Trading, Philfoam Furnishing Industries, Terumo Marketing Phils., Titan Movers Enterprises, Top Exim Marketing, Springway Enterprises, South Pacific International Marble Development, and Universal Steel Smelting Co., among others.
Some of these firms, including Globe Telecom, have filed their respective motions for reconsideration to lift the suspension order issued by the bureau.
The Globe Telecom legal office clarified that the issue was a misinterpretation of the BOC administrative order that required brokers to describe imports in detail.
“The issue emanates from the limited number of characters (only 26) provided in the online form that is supposed to describe the imported goods. This is why we always submit supporting documents as separate attachments because it is impossible to put all item descriptions in the online form,” said lawyer Froilan Castelo, the firm’s legal counsel.
Last year, 26 importers and a broker were covered by similar BOC suspension orders.
In February, the bureau implemented new rules on the accreditation of traders and brokers, including securing a clearance from the Bureau of Internal Revenue.
The new directives are “part of a holistic DOF drive to thwart smugglers,” said the Bureau of Customs.
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