One-time amnesty urged to solve Customs issues

tHE philippine Exporters Confederation Inc. (philexport) said it is proposing solutions to address storage issues and traffic in Customs in lieu of the hike in port fees, which business stakeholders have continued to oppose.

“Well, we are still protesting against it [hike in port fees]. the problem is, every time that there is a problem in the ports, they increase the rates,” philexport president Sergio R. ortiz-luis Jr. told reporters last week.

to solve this issue, the philexport chief said he laid out two proposals for Frederick Go, Secretary for the office of the Special Assistant to the president for Investment and Economic Affairs (osapiea).

ortiz-luis said exporters propose a one-time declaration of amnesty in Customs and the consistent bidding out of confiscated items to reduce the traffic congestion in ports.

“Customs, unlike the [Bureau of Internal Revenue] BIR, which every time there is a change of administration, declares an amnesty,” he said.

the philexport chief also noted that the Bureau of Customs (BOC) does not have the power to declare amnesty.

“Customs doesn’t have the power to declare amnesty. It has to be the Congress eh. At walang prescription sa Customs. So from the time Customs was set up, wala pang amnesty diyan,” he said in a mix of English and Filipino.

to clean up the records, which he said could be “source of graft,” the head of the umbrella organization of philippine exporters said there is a need to declare a “one-time” amnesty.

“So sabi namin para malinis yung kung ano-anong records na nagiging source of graft lang; wala namang napo-prosecute, why not declare a one-time amnesty,” ortiz-luis said.

Another issue that he brought up to the economic czar was on the lack of container yards in ports, which he said is the reason behind congestion in Customs.

“Before, all of the major shipping lines had container yards. Now, they no longer have container yards, that’s why there is traffic congestion at Customs,” he said.

With this, ortiz-luis underscored the importance of consistently biding out every week the confiscated items.

“that’s one of our proposals. otherwise, every time a problem would arise, they would say ‘oh, monitoring’, …Wala naman mangyayari sa monitoring na ’yan eh,” he stressed, adding, “It’s important to dispatch these items.”

Several business groups have earlier issued an “urgent open letter” to president Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. to revoke an order imposing an additional container monitoring system in the current ports operations as this would result in an almost 50 percent increase in the logistics cost of imported goods.