House okays Anti-Smuggling Act

The House of Representatives has approved the proposed Anti-Smuggling Act of 2005 which Speaker Jose de Venecia Jr. said would help cure the country’s fiscal deficit problem by combating outright and technical smuggling.

He said smugglers deprive the treasury of about P150 billion a year.

The anti-smuggling bill plugs loopholes in the Tariff and Customs Code "by providing key systematic solutions that will make it easier for the authorities to detect smuggling," De Venecia said.

The principal authors of the measure include Representatives Jesli Lapus of Tarlac, who chairs the ways and means committee, Eric Singson of Ilocos Sur and Lorenzo Tañada III of Quezon.

Lapus said the proposed law requires the "advance transmission of inward foreign manifests, and their publication, to allow the Bureau of Customs and industry associations to examine the correctness of the valuation of imported goods."

"It also provides for stiffer penalties, both fine and imprisonment, for outright and technical smuggling, and for other violations of the Tariff and Customs Code," he said.

Another feature of the bill is the participation of the private sector in the deliberation of valuation issues through the valuation and classification review committee under the Bureau of Customs.

Lapus said imported goods that are found to be undervalued by more than 30 percent of their actual value, weight or measurement shall constitute prima facie evidence of fraud.

Their importers would face revocation of their importation permit, he said.

To generate a credible reference of values, the bill allows the qualification and accreditation of third-party consultants who are knowledgeable on the prices, duties and taxes of imported goods.

Seized contraband would either be exported, designated for official use by Customs, allocated to state agencies such as the Department of Social Welfare and Development and Department of Health for charitable purposes or destroyed. — Jess Diaz