Missing Subic cars already issued warrants in 2008

SUBIC BAY FREEPORT—The luxury vehicles that were reported as missing from this freeport by the Land Transportation Office had already been the subject of a warrant of seizure and detention by the Bureau of Customs as early as 2008, a BOC official here said.

Errol Albano, district collector at the Subic port, said a total of 203 luxury vehicles were the subject of the order.

“In 2008, we sent the LTO a list of these vehicles, with their chassis and engine numbers,” he said.

Albano, however, said that since January 2008, there has been no feedback from the LTO if any of these vehicles were registered.

Albano said the BOC, on the request of the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority in November 2007, issued the warrants to 85 locators.

These companies are allowed to import and use within the zone at least one vehicle for every $600,000 worth of investments.

But Albano said some  companies had already stopped operations.

Albano, who assumed the BOC post here in April, said they would send a list of the missing vehicles to the LTO again so the agency could verify in its database whether any of them had been registered so the agency could find them.

When asked, Albano said the 203 vehicles were not part of the 1,800 vehicles missing from the 2,907 used cars inventoried by BOC officials in 2007.

“They are not included in the inventory because these vehicles have blue plates (diplomatic plates). These vehicles were brought in here from abroad by various locators, as part of the incentives of operating in an economic zone,” he said.

But Elpidio Jose Manuel, the customs police district commander in the  Freeport, said not all “blue plates” could be considered as diplomatic plates because locators in economic zones in the country are also issued blue license plates that distinguish them from those used by diplomats and embassies. Robert Gonzaga, Inquirer Central Luzon