Cebu customs issues order: Seized hot cars to be destroyed

At least a hundred smuggled luxury cars worth more than P20 million, but left rotting inside the Cebu International Port holding area, have been ordered destroyed by Cebu Customs District Collector Ricardo Belmonte with the aim to deny the smugglers the chance to redeem them in auctions.

The vehicles are either seized by customs enforcement units in the Port of Cebu or abandoned by the owners after seizure or abandonment proceedings, said Belmonte.

Most of the vehicles, he said, are right hand drives (RHD), which violates Republic Act 8506.

The destruction will be done at the CIP holding area soon the office of Customs Commissioner Napoleon Morales will give the go signal.

The collector however told The Freeman that not all of the vehicles will be destroyed citing Customs Memorandum Circular No. 24-2008 signed by Morales last January 28 which directed the district collectors to segregate the vehicles before the destruction.

The circular which implements the “presidential policy on the disposition of smuggled cars” said that all seized “connoisseurs cars” which do not compete with the locally produced vehicles should be auctioned off.

This is in compliance with Pres. Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s Dec. 20, 2007 letter addressed to Finance Sec. Margarito Teves and Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group Undersecretary Antonio Villar, which ordered them to earmark the proceeds of the auction for social housing and hospital upgrading.

It further ordered to “demolish” the second-hand sports utility vehicles seized by customs district ports in the country.

“We should give a strong signal to smugglers that we do not countenance smuggling of hot cars. We should teach them a lesson by denying them of their better chance to recover what we seized from them,” Belmonte said.

He said cases may still be filed against those who have illegally imported the seized vehicles despite their destruction.

The collector said he will meet with Morales in order to identify the units, which will be destroyed and those which are still serviceable and will make it to the auction proceedings.

BOC-Cebu Wharfinger chief Alfredo Nagac Jr. said the Cebu customs office has held at least a hundred second-hand vehicles, 70 of them are rotting in the holding yard, while 30 units are still in different containerized vans stockpiled in the area.

Nagac told The Freeman that each unit costs an average P200,000 because of their present state, which appears unfit for road use.

“They are already rotting. We can not put a better price on them,” Nagac said.

There are high-end luxury vehicles which are still left unloaded from the containerized vans, which may not be included in the destruction as they are already scheduled for auction.

He said the vehicles may be sold as scrap metals after the destruction.

A large number of the vehicles, he said, have lost their accessories — from bumpers to side mirrors to car stereos — to pilferers in the CIP.

Meanwhile, Customs Deputy Commissioner for Revenue Monitoring Reynaldo Umali will launch today a group called Run After the Smugglers (RATS) at the Cebu Customs House.

The body was formed to intensify BOC’s campaign against smuggling, Umali said.

RATS Cebu office will be ran by lawyers hired by the bureau to conduct investigation on the alleged smuggling activities in the different ports. Umali heads the body. — (/NLQ)