Chinese ship allowed to depart after paying P1.4 M in fines

CEBU CITY, Philippines – After paying nearly P1.4 million in fines yesterday, the Chinese ship M/V Ming Yuan is expected to depart today after being given clearance by three government agencies.

PHILHUA Shipping Inc., the local shipping agent of the Hong Kong-registered vessel, paid P1,396,240 in fines imposed by the Bureau of Immigration (BI), Bureau of Quarantine (BQ) and Bureau of Customs (BOC) on the ship and its 24 Chinese crewmembers for illegal anchorage off Malapascua Island since May 19.

The ship’s agent paid the penalty yesterday since it wanted the vessel to depart from the Philippine territory today.

The fines paid to the BI under Alien Control Officer Casimiro Madarang III totaled P1,266,240.

Each crewmember was made to pay an administrative fine of P50,000 or a total of P1.2 million, another P2,000 for waiver of exclusion ground fee or P48,000, P10 legal research fee or P240, and P500 express lane fee or P12,000.

The ship received an administrative fine of P5,000 and an express lane fee of P1,000.

Immigration officer Rey Cuizon yesterday said that they received the faxed copy of the receipts as proof of payment by PHILHUA and that he was instructed by Madarang to clear M/V Ming Yuan.

“The agent from PHILHUA will be here to ask for clearance. We will be basing the clearance on our initial boarding inspection conducted two weeks ago. I will ask for other documents as the penalty has already been okayed. I also have the crew list and I was instructed to give them clearance,” Cuizon said.

“I already examined the crew and they are all healthy and no one has any communicable diseases, so we issued the clearance,” said Emmanuel Labella, director of Quarantine Cebu Station.