The Philippine Bureau of Customs (BOC) said it remains firm in its position to intensify operations against importers and manufacturers of smuggled and fake cigarettes. This is amid the temporary restraining order (TRO) issued by a regional trial court in favor of a cigarette manufacturing company.
Manila Regional Trial Court Branch 1 Judge Tita Bughao Alisuag on March 6 issued a TRO that prevents BOC from conducting raids or inspections at the warehouses of Mighty Corp. for 20 days—or from March 3 to March 23, 2017.
“Yes, we will abide by the TRO, but we are not discounting the legal remedies available to us to counter the said TRO,” Customs Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon said in a statement.
The TRO came after BOC and sister agency Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) conducted a series of raids that resulted in the seizure of thousands of cases of cigarettes with alleged fake tax stamps, the haul amounting to more than a billion pesos.
Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III earlier said BOC and BIR are busy gathering evidence for submission to the Department of Justice (DOJ), preparatory to the government’s filing of an airtight case, as well as other possible charges, against Mighty for alleged tax evasion.
“The government needs to first establish strong evidence to pin down this cigarette manufacturer on such charges,” Dominguez said. “We must make sure the charges stick not only to haul the guilty parties, including their possible cohorts in the government, into jail but to send a clear message to big-time tax dodgers that the Duterte administration is dead set on putting an end to their nefarious activities and sending all of them behind bars.”
Dominguez issued this statement after calling on BIR and BOC last week to file as soon as possible the appropriate charges against persons and companies proven to be the owners of P2.2 billion-worth of smuggled and counterfeit tobacco products, shoes, and clothes seized by government agents in a series of raids.
Among the seized goods were cigarette brands, reportedly manufactured by Mighty Corp. and with fake tax stamps, that BOC operatives captured in raids in Pampanga and the cities of General Santos and Zamboanga in Mindanao.
“They (BOC and BIR) should speed up their investigations and also look into the possible involvement of bureaucrats acting as protectors of these large-scale tax evasion attempts,” Dominguez had said.
These raids were carried out after Mission Orders and Letters of Authority were issued by customs commissioner Nicanor Faeldon. BIR operatives claimed that the seized tax stamps were fake after putting them through authenticity tests.
Faeldon said that customs authorities will continue guarding the warehouses of Mighty Corp. to ensure the seized cigarettes are not tampered with or swapped with legitimate products.
The customs commissioner said he remains optimistic that after gathering all relevant evidence, the bureau will be able to build a strong case against Mighty Corp.
However, Mighty, in a statement, claimed BIR’s “malfunctioning taggant excise stamp validating devices” produced varying results when used on its products that were seized in the raid, which it called “unlawful.”
Meanwhile, BOC seized three containerloads of Mighty-branded cigarettes bearing what appeared to be fake tax stamps after the three container vans arrived in Cebu and Tacloban cities.
The first two containers were unloaded on March 5 from MV Don Alberto Sr., which docked at the Port of Cebu from Manila via Tacloban, Leyte province. Another shipment was seized in an operation in Tacloban on March 7.
Operatives led by Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service (CIIS) director Neil Estrella inspected two containers and opened one box at the yard of Gothong Lines at Pier No. 4 in the Port of Cebu.
Estrella said CIIS conducted the raid following a tip about the arriving shipments.
Present during BOC’s initial examination were representatives from BIR and the consignee Rolando Pocong, shipping lines, and Philippine Coast Guard, as well as members of media.
Estrella said the boxes were believed to be part of several shipments of Mighty cigarettes fitted with fake tax stamps.
“The bureau has been receiving reports that some of the products that were not seized in Pampanga were sent to different warehouses in the country,” Estrella added.
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