MANILA, Philippines — Authorities must conduct surprise inspections on warehouses and cold storage facilities of importers, especially those long suspected of smuggling agricultural products into the country, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian said yesterday.
He suggested the move to find out why no suspected smuggler or trader, alleged to have violated customs laws, has been arrested or prosecuted despite the series of high-profile seizures of smuggled onions and other agricultural products worth hundreds of millions of pesos by the Bureau of Customs (BOC) in the past months.
“There have been a lot of raids but apparently these are not followed by the filing of charges. They (BOC) have a low conviction rate… they know who these smugglers are. They (smugglers) are not afraid and won’t stop if the BOC does not run after them. What the BOC apparently does is issue press releases but not file cases,” the senator told dzBB in Filipino.
Gatchalian said the lists of notorious agricultural smugglers have often been presented in congressional inquiries in the past several years with the BOC and other agencies vowing to do something about it.
He said the Senate ways and means committee, which he chairs, would look into the transactions at the BOC particularly on taxes paid and volume of imports.