The Bureau of Customs (BOC) was urged over the weekend to declare import prices of products frequently smuggled into the country.
“One way of highlighting the menace of smuggling is for the Customs bureau to publish the declared import prices of frequently smuggled goods. This is consistent with the BOC’s mandate under the Tariff and Customs Code to prevent and suppress smuggling and other customs fraud,” Fight Illicit Trade (Fight IT) lead convenor Jesus L. Arranza said in a statement.
Agricultural products such as rice and sugar are some of the commodities illegally imported into the country with such regularity.
“By posting the import prices of frequently smuggled goods on the Customs bureau’s website, the general public has access to such vital information on a 24/7 basis. The concerned citizens can also readily alert authorities if they come across suspected smuggled products,” Arranza, who also chairs the Federation of Philippine Industries (FPI), explained.
Publishing such information “adheres to the principles under the Revised Kyoto Convention that the necessary information regarding customs shall be provided to interested parties, and that customs bureaus shall maximize the use of information technology,” Arranza added.
“The problem of smuggling is harming both government, which is losing billions of pesos in revenues, and the private sector, whose legitimate businesses are stolen by illicit traders,” he said.
Based on a report by the Washington DC-based Global Financial Integrity (GFI), the entry of goods that evaded payments of import duties and other taxes translated to foregone revenues of $25.8 billion in 2011, according to Arranza.
In that same year, the GFI report revealed a fourth of all imported goods were “not reported” to the customs agency, he added.
“GFI’s analysis further revealed that from 1960 to 2011, $410.5 billion flowed through the Philippines as ‘illicit funds.’ Of this amount, $277.6 billion resulted from underreporting goods shipped into the Philippines,” Arranza said.
Around 33 domestic industries comprising the FPI launched Fight IT in a bid to curb smuggling, which according to government has cost the country annual losses of P200 billion.
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
