Go after big-time smugglers, not OFWs and balikbayan boxes

TBureau of Customs said it would impose tougher measures on balikbayan boxes for fear that these tax-free packages are being used by traders of smuggled goods into the country. The bureau is acting on an verified fear, in the process punishing our Overseas Filipino Workers (OFWs) and their families, whereas it has failed to stop massive smuggling operations in rice and other goods. It has never explained what happened to some 2,000 container vans which disappeared from its custody several months ago. It even allowed the entry of garbage from Canada masquerading as reusable plastics.

The “balikbayan box” concept can be traced to the Marcos administration when Section 105 of the Tariff and Customs Code of the Philippines was amended to provide duty and tax-free privileges to OFWs, so they could send personal gift items to their families in the Philippines, Sen. Ferdinand Marcos Jr. said. It was a small thank-you gesture to overseas workers who have kept the national economy afloat with their remittances in the billions of dollars over the years.

In explaining the bureau’s decision to open balikbayan boxes and tax their contents, Customs Commissioner Alberto Lina said the existing rules are “obsolete” and some items inside the boxes could be considered smuggled goods.

The reaction to the bureau’s announcement has been massive, as may be expected. A coalition of various civil society organizations and OFWS leaders asked the Philippine government to “appreciate the importance of every single balikbayan box to an overseas worker and his or her family.”

One fear is that once bureau employees start opening balikbayan boxes to look for taxable items, some of the personal gifts might disappear. But more than the possible loss of such items, it is the very idea of withdrawing a privilege granted by law to OFWs, in gratitude for what they have given to the country, that is important. “We owe our hardworking and productive countrymen a lot of gratitude for their hard-earned taxes and remittanes that are keeping the Philippine economy afloat,”Buhay party-list Lito Atienza said. “Surely the new Lina doctrine on opening up our OFWs’ balikbayan boxes sent to their families is no way to treat them, considering that we refer to them as our modern-day heroes.”

The Bureau of Customs may be trying to meet its collection target, which it has failed to do for years, but it should go after big-time smugglers of rice and other commercial commodities, not after the small people who make up our OFW community and their families.