PASG denies setting up Customs checkpoints

MANILA, Philippines - An official of the Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group (PASG) denied yesterday allegations that the enforcement unit had set up checkpoints at the country’s ports to check all outgoing container vans from the Customs zone.

“(The allegation) is an absolute lie. PASG never put up checkpoint in any port of the country. We are aware that setting up of checkpoints outside the Customs zone is illegal, so why would we resort to it,” said PASG operations group head lawyer Edmond Arugay in a phone interview.

Arugay, a deputy director of the National Bureau of Investigation and detailed with the PASG, even invited the media to see for themselves if there are indeed PASG checkpoints at any port of the country.

An organization of Customs brokers, truckers, importers and other port users had alleged that a PASG operations group headed by Arugay set up tents outside the gates of the Bureau of Customs at the Port of Manila and the Manila International Container Port, stopping all container vans and checking all import documents.

The group claimed PASG imposes additional payments in duties and taxes or even demands the one percent reexamination of goods.

The port users said that this has caused unnecessary clogging of hundred of container vans in the streets outside the Customs zone.

The STAR learned from sources that there may be other groups, other than PASG, that are setting up checkpoints in various ports of the country.  – Nestor Etolle