Buhay Party-list Rep. Joselito Atienza on Sunday called on the government to investigate the alleged corruption between Bureau of Customs officials and big steel producers for smuggling.
He lamented that the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act was passed in 2015, but was never implemented, especially the pre-inspection provision under Section 440 that a container van must be inspected at their port of origin.
“The huge amount of tax revenues the government is losing due to this malpractice could be used to fund infrastructure projects under President Rodrigo Duterte’s build, build, build program aimed to fix the transportation system to ease the commuters’ daily burden,” he said. He urged BOC officials to implement the pre-shipment inspection of all cargo vans entering the country.
Dante Jimenez, Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission chairperson, cited possible misdeclaration in the importation documents submitted by the big steel manufacturers.
