Tax take from smuggled goods hits P40 million in five months

The Bureau of Custom’s anti-smuggling task force has collected some P40 million in taxes from illegally imported goods it had seized in intensified operations against smugglers in the past five months, the bureau disclosed yesterday.

Customs Commissioner Napoleon Morales said he is confident the task force would meet its target of P50 million in taxes and "do its share in the overall target collection of the bureau for this year."

"We are heading towards more aggressive and bolder operations as smugglers continue to defy with impunity ports and customs laws," Morales told a news briefing.

BOC records showed that as of Aug. 27, the total value of smuggled goods seized by the task force in 12 raids on warehouses in Metro Manila and Mindanao reached over P31 million.

The task force had also foiled an attempt to sneak into the country some P9 million worth of garments through a special economic zone in northern Luzon.

Among the unit’s biggest successes was the confiscation last week of a shipment of smuggled rice, worth P20.8 million, aboard two ships docked at Manila’s North Harbor.

The sacks of rice were in 52 20-foot shipping containers. They were originally to be sent to Cebu, but were later redirected to ports in Visayas and Mindanao because of the customs bureau’s intensified anti-smuggling campaign.

Morales told reporters the bureau had help from the Philippine Coast Guard in the seizure of the smuggled rice on the M/V Filipina Princess and Sulex Express 2.

The task force had recently seized smuggled shoes, bags and apparel worth P10.97 million from warehouses in Sta. Ana and Tondo, Manila.

Morales said the task force is bracing for an intensified campaign following the discovery of heavily armed smugglers operating in Sulu and Zamboanga City.

Morales vowed to curb smuggling, which analysts have partly blamed for the country’s poor economic performance. "We are also forging relations with other countries in the region to create a more secured mobility of trade."