Lawmaker’s imports raise big furor at Customs
Some personnel at the Bureau of Customs (BOC) are up in arms about the agency coming to an amicable settlement with Isabela Rep. Rodolfo Albano III who was being investigated by the BOC for alleged technical smuggling.
Albano is the owner of a shipment of US-made all-terrain vehicles, or ATVs, that was seized by the BOC at the Subic Freeport in December.
The shipment, which arrived on Dec. 25, had been misdeclared and undervalued, clear violations of the Tariff and Customs Code of the Philippines, officials at the Department of Finance (DOF) had pointed out. The BOC is a DOF-attached agency.
Sought for comment, Albano said there was “nothing irregular” about the shipment of “personal items” that he purchased from RCM International, a firm based in Downey, California.
A commercial invoice issued by RCM showed that on Oct. 24, 2014, it sold two ATVs with accessories to Albano whose address was listed as 50 Balete St., Ayala Alabang, Muntinlupa City, Metro Manila.
Contacted by phone, Albano said all his importation documents were “in order.”
“What smuggling, what fraud are they talking about? They can’t prove anything. Those were personal items. Is it part of their reform program to seize personal items?” he said, adding that he had “been through some form of harassment.”
“Customs has agreed to release my shipment if I pay an additional P641,000 in duties and taxes,” he told the Inquirer. He said he had earlier paid over P150,000 in import fees to BOC-Subic.
A BOC source interviewed for this story said Albano’s shipment “should not be released because there is fraud involved” and “because of violations of the Tariff Code.”
The source, who sought anonymity due to the sensitive topic, also assailed Commissioner Alberto Lina for being “soft on some (customs stakeholders), but hard on others.”
BOC documents furnished the Inquirer indicated that a 20-foot container consigned to the legislator was declared as containing “45 packages of household goods and personal items and automobiles.”
However, “no household goods and personal effects were found” by customs personnel who inspected the shipment.
Instead, they discovered two Argo ATVs with Kohler engines and nearly two dozen vehicle accessories inside the container.
Customs inspectors also discovered another discrepancy—the shipment’s declared weight was 18,250 kilograms while its actual weight was only 3,287 lbs (1,491 kg).
Also, the shipment’s declared value was only $6,600 (about P297,000) compared to the BOC-assessed value of $55,874 (about P2.51 million).
In a Feb. 17 report, the BOC Intelligence Group referred to “findings of undervaluation where a 46-percent discrepancy was found between the value as found and the value as declared.”
“A percentage of discrepancy of more than 30 percent shall constitute prima facie evidence of fraud, pursuant to Section 2503 of the Tariff and Customs Code of the Philippines,” the report said.
