A nation of smugglers?

The most horrible threat to the country, apart from Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, is smuggling.

It eats away at our economic sinews. It bastardizes our industry. It enriches unduly and unjustly the corrupt, and makes us the dumping ground of low-cost, mostly low-quality goods that otherwise are not saleable to consumers in countries that produce them.

We are a nation of smugglers and we ought to be ashamed of this undeserved reputation. But are we?

No. On the other hand, we seem to take pride in our ability to sneak-in undetected goods into our national territory. We seem to be proud even of our possessions—of imported goods that were not paid for with the lawful customs duties and taxes.

Everyday, the newspapers are littered with news about a smuggling try, about a smuggler getting caught, about a smuggled cache of cars, motorcycles, VCRs, clothes, toys, utensils, frozen food, grains, onions. We smuggle anything. We even smuggled whistleblower Jun Lozada by not requiring him to pass though immigration.

In fact, one needs not read a newspaper to know about this. He or she has only to go to Divisoria, or Clark and Subic, or Cebu and Zamboanga, to find out that at the rate the smugglers are dumping about almost anything imported from other countries, we might never have enough warehouses soon to accommodate smuggled goods.

Or we might not have any manufacturing industry to speak of in the near future. We smuggle fertilizers, pens, carpentry tools, shavers, cigarette lighters, batteries, flour, cement, etc. whose prices are pitifully lower than local goods. Name it and we smuggle it.

Why don't we just abolish the Bureau of Customs and make importing a deregulated enterprise?

Since 2006, 400 cars are smuggled each week in Cebu, the Philippine Daily Inquirer reported in February. Also last month, the Philippine Association of Flour Millers said lower-cost flour from China is being smuggled into our shores, contributing to a three-month accumulated revenue loss of about P8 million in duties and taxes. Last week, 10 container vans believed to be containing cars and motorcycles have been smuggled in the port of Cebu, which has replaced Subic as the smuggling capital of the Philippines.

How much in import duties and taxes does the government lose to smugglers yearly? I don’t have the estimates, but it could be huge. Look at the number of millionaires in the Bureau of Customs, easily the most corrupt and most corruptible agency of the government.

Actually, just like marriage where it takes two to make a union, it takes two to smuggle goods. One is the smuggler himself and his cohorts and the other is the Bureau of Customs, whose offices are inhabited by coddlers of smugglers.

OK, OK, not all officials and employees of the bureau are corrupt and in cahoots with smugglers--in fact, there might be more decent people there than inside Malacanang itself--but why do you think smuggling continues unabated—and gotten worse under the administration of the crook in Malacanang? Isn’t it because smugglers operate under the very noses of some Customs inspectors, or even some Customs security guards?

Don’t tell me smugglers have the technology to make their goods invisible, hence, undetectable. Remember, we have an X-Ray Inspection unit in the BOC, headed by lawyer Ma. Lourdes V. Mangaoang but, I am sorry to say this, the X-ray machines of the BOC might not be working properly when smuggled goods come under their scrutiny. What do you think?

There is also an agency, the Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group headed by a former mayor and a Malacanang underling, which is supposed to go after all kinds of smugglers. Has it gone after the influence peddlers identified to be reporting directly to Malacanang officials?

The PASG, last month, confirmed that documents used in smuggling activities are circulating in the BOC. O, di ba ang galing ng Bureau of Customs? Pa-X-ray X-ray pa kayo!

And just last week, foreign chambers of commerce and industry, during a dialogue with Customs and Land Transportation Office officials, have urged the government to do something to stop smuggling. Manigas kayo!

Who told you the government can stop smuggling when it is Macapagal-Arroyo’s government itself that coddles smugglers—and therefore, profits from it? The princely sum of smuggled cars in the country is estimated to be P10 billion annually, that’s over 50 percent more than the alleged commission of former COMELEC chairman Benjamin Abalos from the NBN-ZTE contract.

“If 20,000 cars have been smuggled in Cebu, why wasn’t anyone prosecuted?” asked Hubert D’Aboville, president of the European Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines.

Good question. But that’s like asking GMA why he left Mike Arroyo in a hospital just so she could fly to China to sign the NBN-ZTE contract.

Any more questions?