THE Bureau of Customs (BOC) seized 11 shipments at the port of Davao from January to July after its consignees misdeclared the goods inside the containers.
Two were seized at the Sasa Port in Davao City while the rest were at Davao International Container Terminal in Panabo City, Davao del Norte.
On Thursday, July 19, 2018, two of the 11 container vans were opened by the agency with BOC commissioner Isidro Lapeña.
In a press conference, Lapeña said upon inspection of the agency, 10 of the container vans contained ukay-ukay or used clothing, which were not declared by the consignees. These misdeclared items had an estimated value of P17.8 million.
BOC said in a statement that the ten shipments with ukay-ukay were consigned to Zainar General Merchandising, Al-Shaeer Enterprises, Suluans General Merchandising, and Mourpling Trading. The companies declared the contents of their containers to be bed sheets, thin blankets, shoes, bags, and stuffed toys.
"We want these consignees to pay the rightful amount because they owe it to the Filipino people," Lapeña said.
Under RA 4653 or "An Act to Safeguard the Health of the People and maintain the Dignity of the Nation by declaring it a National Policy to Prohibit the Commercial Importation of Textile articles commonly known as Used Clothing and Rags", importation of ukay-ukay is strictly prohibited.
"We would want to also secure the safety of Filipinos. We do not know where these clothing came from. We do not know what diseases they bring. And we don't want that for our Filipino consumers," Lapeña said.
In the inspection done by BOC in another container, it also discovered a dump truck in the shipment of Fullwon Philippines Enterprises Ltd. Inc.
"The consignee misdeclared the dump truck as a mine tractor," BOC said, adding that the truck had an estimated value of P700,000.
One of the container vans were also filled with counterfeit cellular products.
Lapeña said the declaration for the container van was for electronic accessories, but upon inspection, boxes of fake cellular products were found. (GAD)