A total of P4.62 million in duties and taxes were recovered in the past four months from 117 containers that had grossly undervalued imported shipments due to alerts of attempted technical smuggling issued by the Philippine Bureau of Customs’ Command Center (ComCen).
Customs commissioner Nicanor Faeldon in a statement said the recovered duties and taxes from alerted undervalued shipments came from five major ports: Port of Manila (POM), Manila International Container Port (MICP), Port of Cebu (POC), Port of Cagayan de Oro (POCO), and Port of Davao (POD).
ComCen, composed of representatives from different BOC offices, was created under Customs Special Order (CSO) No. 45-2016 to serve as a command and control facility that informs the BOC chief of everything that is going on in all collection districts.
Quoting from the summary report of the Intelligence Group (IG) and the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service (CIIS), Faeldon cited the following figures:
- MICP – 44 alerts on 83 container vans
- POM – 11 alerts on 15 container vans
- POCO – 13 alerts on 14 container vans
- POC – 3 alerts on 3 container vans
- POD – 2 alerts on 2 container vans
BOC said the contents of the alerted shipments were correctly declared but grossly undervalued; hence, the agency charged their importers additional duties and taxes.
The shipments contained varied items, including pump parts, waste water treatment system, undergarments and ladies accessories, used copying machines, drilling equipment parts, cutting wheel grinding stone, and poultry incubation equipment.
Faeldon said adopting a stringent anti-smuggling policy, now strictly enforced by IG and CIIS, is supporting his vision for a genuine change in BOC.
He said IG and CIIS have worked closely together on many aspects of intelligence campaigns since he took office on June 30, making them “one efficient apparatus” in carrying out their missions to support revenue collection, fight smuggling, and protect the country’s borders.
Faeldon’s statement about IG and CIIS’s achievements, however, comes after President Rodrigo Duterte disclosed in an interview on November 1 that he wants a Customs “deputy for intelligence” to be suspended immediately for alleged corrupt practices.
Faeldon relieved and replaced Enforcement Group officer-in-charge (OIC) Arnel Alcaraz, assuming him to be the one referred to by Duterte, since Alcaraz was the only OIC deputy commissioner with a formal complaint filed against him.
So far, other cases of smuggling involving misdeclaration, misclassification and non-declaration that were alerted by IG and CIIS through the ComCen are still under investigation by BOC’s Legal Service.
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