The Philippine Association of Meat Processors Inc. asked the Bureau of Customs to immediately restore to 5 percent the import duty on mechanically deboned meat and refund the excessive payments advanced by the importers.
Pampi through legal counsel Ma. Luz S. Arzaga-Mendoza, in a letter to Customs commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero on June 21, complained about the “unwarranted imposition of excessive duty rate of 40 percent on MDM” or the raw materials used by meat processors to produce hotdogs, sausages and canned meat products when the right tariff should be 5 percent.
“We are respectfully requesting your good office to issue a directive immediately stopping the further imposition of the 40-percent duty rate on MDM and order for the refund of the excessive payments advanced by the aggrieved importers,” Arzaga-Mendoza said.
Customs district collector Erastus Sandino Austria earlier issued letters to MDM importers demanding the payment of the 40-percent duty rate and threatening to impose the corresponding surcharges and interests starting March 5, 2019 when the Rice Tariffication Law took effect.
Austria argued that the law effectively raised the tariff rate on MDM shipments to 40 percent, a decision that PAMPI found unilateral.
The meat processors said the Customs collection of a 40-percent tariff on MDM had significantly affected the meat processing industry.
“By reason of the sudden upsurge, our meat importers are being constrained to incur staggering amount of costs. Not to mention the serious threat to their viability, especially those new players who cannot afford the additional burden,” Arzaga-Mendoza said.
“Though it cannot be gainsaid that the Rice Tarrification Act No. 11203 already lifted the quantitative imports restriction on rice, said law however did not authorize any reversion to the higher duty rate of 40 percent in so far as MDM is concerned,” she said.
Arzaga-Mendoza said even the President “never gave his imprimatur to the honorable commission to unilaterally order the imposition and collection of the aforementioned rate”.
The national government even issued Executive Order No. 82 on June 14, 2019 to retain the 5-percent import tariff on MDM until 2020.
“We hope that you will ruminate on this matter and also to take into consideration the significant contributions of our meat importers to the Philippine economy, lest we will be left with no other alternative but to resort to our courts of justice,” Arzaga-Mendoza said in the letter to Guerrero.