Alvarez to look into parcel hoarding by BOC personnel

MANILA, Philippines - Bureau of Customs Commissioner Angelito Alvarez said yesterday he will investigate allegations by Postmaster General Josie dela Cruz that BOC personnel assigned at the Central Mail Exchange Center are refusing to release parcels that arrive at the CMEC to their intended recipients.

“I would ask for an inventory (of the items placed on hold in CMEC) and ask why they were placed on hold. But I suspect the reason for holding them is because of the taxes and duties,” he said.

Alvarez said the public may have been used to the previous rates in taxes and duties, but the BOC is now geared toward better tax collection.

He said that since he assumed the BOC’s top post 14 months ago, “our collection at the (Philippine Postal Corp. or Philpost) increased by 70 percent.”

BOC-Manila International Container Port district collector Ricardo Belmonte said it was likely that the BOC personnel at CMEC were only doing their job.

“If these items have been placed on hold it is because they are dutiable. It does not mean that we are holding it for no reason at all, the BOC is not like that,” he said.

Small-scale smuggling

Dela Cruz said last week that Philpost and BOC personnel at the CMEC could be conniving to turn the office into “a possible vehicle for smuggling, but on a smaller scale” because taxable items such as motorcycle and gun parts were allowed to slip through without appropriate taxes being paid while ordinary parcels are slapped with taxes.  

She also said there is a BOC officer assigned at CMEC who has reportedly been abusing the term “commercial” by putting on hold parcels that contain only one or two of the same items. She said that for a parcel to be labeled commercial, there has to be 12 of the same item.

Dela Cruz pointed that the BOC has been storing the arriving mail and parcels that in a span of a few days filled up the 30-square meter Philpost warehouse with unreleased goods.