Mindanaotoday.com | BOC-10 cracks down on smuggled products in NorMin
By: Jigger Jerusalem
CAGAYAN DE ORO CITY – Following a series of operations that resulted to the confiscation of agricultural products that were flagged by authorities for being wrongfully declared last month, Bureau of Customs-10 (BOC-10) and agriculture officials said they will continue to crack down on imported goods that enter the local ports without proper documentation and paid with incorrect duties and taxes.
“We don’t know why they (smugglers) keep on doing it. But, for our part, we have intensified our campaign against smuggling per directive of Pres. Ferdinand Marcos Jr., especially on agricultural products,” said Oliver Valiente, field chief of BOC’s Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service (CIIS) in Northern Mindanao.
The BOC-10’s vigilance against the entry of smuggled items has led to the seizure of agricultural products, mainly onions, with market value estimated at P66 million, on three separate occasions, within days of each other.
The latest shipment to be intercepted by the Customs were six container vans filled with white and red onions at the Mindanao Container Terminal (MCT) sub-port in Tagoloan, Misamis Oriental on July 28, 2022.
BOC-10 said the items, declared as “soft tortilla wrap,” arrived from China on July 23 and were consigned to the Primex Export and Import Producer. It was valued at P18 million.
On July 22, three of the seven containers consigned to Frankie Trading Enterprises were flagged down. Its documents said its contents were butter or dairy spreads, but were actually onions placed in carton boxes labeled as “pears.”
The other four container vans, consigned to Primex Export and Import Producer and indicated as “spring roll patti” in its inward foreign manifest, were filled with red and white onions. The seven containers were estimated to be worth P21 million.
A few days before that, on July 19, after an examination, the BOC-10 had determined that the contents of the four container vans from China that arrived at the MCT on July 12 were red and white onions.
Also declared as “spring roll patti,” the cargo’s estimated market value is placed at P12 million.
Earlier last month, BOC-10 opened five container vans full of red and white onions and carrots which were declared as “autolysed yeast in powder form.”
Having an estimated value of P15 million, the illegal goods also came from China and listed Primex Export and Import Producer as consignee. It was seized July 7.
A Warrant of Seizure and Detention (WSD) will be issued against the shipments for violation of Section 1400 of RA 10863 or the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act, Valiente said.
Lawyer Elvira Cruz, BOC-10 district collector, has reiterated her warning against unscrupulous importers, saying, “smuggling greatly affects locally produced agricultural products since it cannot compete with illegally imported agricultural products.”
Manuel Barradas, regional manager of the Department of Agriculture-10’s Bureau of Plant Industry, said the confiscated goods could not be donated or given out to the public as he clarified that the only option is to destroy the products or return it to its origin, which is costly.
“We don’t know what pest and disease these might bring that would infect our other crops here in Mindanao. This would also pose human risk because we don’t know what preservatives or chemicals they used. This is a hazard to our consumers,” Barradas said.
Marietta Zamoranos, MCT sub-port collector, said the confiscated items will be subjected to seizure proceedings and after that, disposition by condemnation.
“Our government does not allow the same to be disposed of by auction, so, eventually, it will be condemned,” she sadded.
Proper vetting
For the Customs to act on a report that an imported shipment is in violation of Philippine laws, Valiente said they have to carefully validate any information that reaches their office to prevent any untoward consequence.
“We cannot open these container vans all at once because if we do that, it will disrupt the flow of economy and that would also hamper the operation of the port. We rely on intelligence gathering, tips that are verified and vetted by the CIIS, before taking any action,” he said.
Besides, if the BOC opens all the containers one by one, it would take so much time resulting in congestion and complaints from legitimate business owners who would be affected by it.
Valiente added there were also times that business operators would feed wrong information to the Customs to put their competitors in a bad light, like alleging that their business rivals are importing contraband.
“In such instances, we obtain legitimate complaints from a complainant, we document it so we can have a basis for us to stop the shipment from going out of the port or from going anywhere in any part of the country,” the CIIS chief said.
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