BBM: Efforts vs smugglers failed
We cannot continue to depend on these systems which have already proven themselves to be quite ineffective.
President Ferdinand “Bongbong” Marcos Jr. has called for reforms in the bureaucracy, as he issued a challenge to government officials to step up, saying existing measures aimed at combatting smuggling have been ineffective.
Malacañang on Saturday said the President did not mince words when he criticized the present system intended to protect the country’s borders from smugglers that is being led by the Bureau of Customs and the Department of Agriculture.
“To be brutally frank about it, we have a system but it is not working. Smuggling in this country is absolutely rampant,” Marcos said during a meeting with the Private Sector Advisory Council in Malacañang.
“So it does not matter to me how many systems we have in place, they do not work.”
Profiling suspected smugglers and shipments and warehouse inspections are among the measures being undertaken by the BoC to curb smuggling.
For the Chief Executive, a new system must be put in place to better address the rise in smuggling that is causing massive income loss for local farmers.
“So we really have to find something else. We cannot continue to depend on these systems which have already proven themselves to be quite ineffective,” Marcos, who concurrently serves as Agriculture Secretary, said.
The President emphasized that whether the systems were truly ineffective or were being manipulated for corruption, the end result was that the systems currently in place were futile.
The government, he said, cannot gloss over the issue as it adversely affects government revenues and private businesses.
Innovation as guide
Marcos added that issues on the ease of doing business and the inefficiency at the country’s airports and seaports are major complaints of the business sector that need to be addressed.
Communications Secretary Cheloy Garafil said the President called on the agencies concerned to “be more innovative,” stressing that the government has to delineate functions or establish new agencies if necessary, to be effective.
She noted that one of the recommendations raised was opening up the database to the BoC and DA to ensure the efficient sharing of information.
“Officials said it is a way of correlating information to fight smuggling. Even enforcers, they said, have a problem running after smugglers because of the documentary requirements or the paper chase,” she added.
The President’s directive came amid the skyrocketing prices of onions in local markets, going for as high as P700 per kilo, making it more expensive than meat.
Onions, a staple in almost every Filipino dish, have become so ultra-expensive that they are now being smuggled into the country.
Last Thursday, customs agents seized over P153 million worth of red and white onions from China smuggled through a Manila port.
The agricultural products were in seven containers declared as “fish balls.”
Authorities have filed criminal complaints against the consignee of the shipment, which arrived on 16 November last year.