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Albay Representative Joey Salceda eyes separating imports from transshipment goods for re-export and “ring fencing” the latter in free zones to halt smuggling of agricultural products
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He says by “ring fencing” the re-exports, they don’t get mixed up with imports and find their way into the domestic market
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The idea was bought up by Salceda in a hearing of the smuggling problem by the House Committee on Ways and Means
“Ring fencing” transshipment products meant for re-export is a sure way to stop the smuggling of agricultural products into the domestic market, according to Albay Representative Joey Salceda during a House Committee on Ways and Means hearing on January 23.
But an automatic report system that can detect discrepancies in duties for transhipments must first be developed and put in place to determine which arriving imported shipments are sent to free zones and which one are released to the market.
“Our first recommendation is an automatic alert system, a digitized valuation system where significant deviations from pre-set benchmark values are reported to the Department of Agriculture, Department of Finance, and Bureau of Customs,” Salceda said.
He said once the auto report system is implemented, segregating imports from transhipment goods for re-export would be easy. He said this keeps the transhipments from getting mixed up with imported goods intended for the domestic market.
He said many people won’t like goods for re-export to stay in the free zones for obvious reasons. But Salceda said, “Our [smuggling] problems would be solved if we could ring-fence the re-exports.”
Salceda also suggested real-time tracking of vessels and containers, especially since several shipments are active in international monitoring but are nowhere to be found in the country, raising suspicion that there are smuggled items in those containers.
Salceda’s panel discussed the problem of agricultural smuggling during the hearing amid numerous reports of farm products being sneaked into the country.
The Bureau of Customs has intercepted hundreds of containerized shipments filled with agriculture products that had been underdeclared or misdeclared as other goods.
