The Bureau of Customs (BOC) has filed a second smuggling case against Stellent Corp, this time for the illegal importation of six containers of stainless steel sheets.
Stellent chairman of the board Rico Rigor Cayunda Cinco and board members Charmayne De La Peña Angeles, Asuncion Petra Angeles, Maria Rhezy Ilada, and Ruge Robert Illada, as well as customs broker Ruby Ballesteros are facing charges of unlawful importation of stainless steel sheets with a total value of around P7.4 million.
Last January, Stellent officials together with customs broker John Philip Malinao Yap were also charged with trying to illegally import P14.3 million worth of steel angle bars.
Cinco and the others are facing charges of alleged violation of Sections 3602 of the Tariff and Customs Code of the Philippines (TCCP), as amended by Republic Act 7651, and Article 172 in relation to Article 171 and Article 183 of the Revised Penal Code for misdeclaring six 20-foot containers as containing “steel sheet piles” that upon examination turned out to hold stainless steel sheets, which are a more expensive type of steel product.
Steel sheet pilings are mainly used as ground support in building construction while stainless steel sheets have many more uses outside of construction, including in machinery and vehicle manufacturing, container manufacturing, shipbuilding, and bridge construction.
Aside from the false declaration, the declared customs value of the shipment that arrived at the Port of Manila from China in September 2014 was only P433,156, but the examiner found it to be P809,955. Duties and taxes were declared only as P433,156 while the shipment’s actual duties and taxes were said to amount to P1.004 million.
“By misdeclaring the stainless steel sheet as steel sheet pipes, Stellent was not only trying to bring into the country a more expensive steel product illegally but they are also evading payment of the lawful duties and taxes,” Customs Commissioner John Phillip Sevilla said in a statement.
“Steel sheet piles are subject to zero tariff under the ASEAN-China Free Trade Area Preferential Tariff while stainless steel sheets are subject to 3 percent tariff,” Sevilla said.
The Customs chief noted that the filing of a second case against Stellent “shows our resolve to fight all forms of smuggling by continuously filing cases against technical smugglers and seeing their eventual conviction.”
For its efforts to rid the market of smuggled steel products, BOC was recently lauded by the Philippine Iron and Steel Institute for filing anti-smuggling cases against erring steel importers. According to PISI, the prompt actions by the BOC and Department of Trade and Industry have strengthened the resolve of domestic steel makers to further intensify the public-private campaign against smuggling.
