They’re still doubling taxes on OFW boxes

Picking on small Filipinos

P-Noy is no hero of poor overseas Filipino workers. He may have halted Customs chief Bert Lina from ransacking OFWs’ Balikbayan boxes. But through Lina he’s still more than doubling the Customs duties on those cartons. That makes costlier the sending of gifts to the family. In short, P-Noy is picking on the OFWs, instead of big-time smugglers.

As reported here Monday, Lina arbitrarily imposed last July an extra Customs charge of P40,000 per cargo container of Balikbayan boxes. In Oct. will be added another P60,000. That’s on top of P80,000 that Customs already was charging. By the Christmas delivery season, Lina will be exacting P180,000 per container.

Balikbayan freight forwarders naturally will pass on the new levies to customers. The present Balikbayan service of $52-$57 per box will rise by $5.50-$7 — all to suit P-Noy’s new exactions.

P-Noy aims to raise P600 million more per year from the OFWs’ gift packages. That’s a paltry sum compared to the P200 billion Customs could earn by going after oil smugglers. The latter’s ships berth in all the major ports, in full view of Lina’s inspectors. There’s a big difference, though. Only loose change can be extorted from Balikbayan forwarders. Oil smugglers bribe sitting administrations billions of pesos to look the other way.

Smuggling worsened to $19.6 billion a year in P-Noy’s first two years in office, compared to $3.1 billion under Joseph Estrada and $3.8 billion under Gloria Arroyo. Just weeks into P-Noy’s tenure, 2,000 highly dutiable containers were whisked out of Customs. At a modest P100,000-tax per container, the government lost P2 billion in one blow. “That was before my watch,” Lina, a 2010 campaign contributor to P-Noy, is quick to yell. But the Customs chief then was his personal recommendation to P-Noy, the general manager of his freight and related companies that deal everyday with the Customs.

Business columnist Tony Lopez points up the irony. OFWs pump into the economy $25 billion, or P1.15 trillion, a year – ten times more than new investments. Yet Lina chooses to antagonize them by announcing to scrutinize their 400,000 boxes a year. That would open to theft and invasion of privacy the contents that painstakingly were assembled over months of scrimping on personal expenses.

In truth the law allows such 100-percent inspection, although Customs only randomly opens a few for faster processing. Lina last week threatened to resort to the minute inspections to silence the Balikbayan forwarders grumbling against the new P180,000-duty. P-Noy at first let Lina have his way, until OFW families counter-threatened to take it out on P-Noy’s anointed presidential successor in 2016. P-Noy feigned the hero by restraining Lina into mere x-ray and K-9 examining, which is already being done anyway.

Like a sore loser skulking from a fight, the press secretary had to spit back. Supposedly negligible is the $68 million, or P3.2 billion, that the economy would lose from angry OFWs’ “no-remittance protest” today. Maybe he wants to provoke them into prolonging that to a “no-remittance week.”

* * *

More and more parties are crying against the administration’s “selective justice.” Like: three Opposition senators singled out for plunder raps, of 280 past and present lawmakers who misused pork barrels; the unusual speed in indicting VP Jojo Binay for misdeeds as mayor of Makati, in contrast to inaction against high corruption in the Departments  of Agriculture, Transportation, Natural Resources, and Defense; the indictment of SAF field officers who took down the international terrorist Marwan, while no murder charges have yet been filed against the massacrers of the SAF-44; and the impending charges of illegal detention against certain Iglesia ni Cristo ministers, in contrast to their unheeded plea for action on two church mates among the SAF-44. Not to forget, the inclusion of TESDA head Joel Villanueva among the third batch of PDAF indictees, just because he’s not with the ruling Liberal Party, and the justice department feigning impartiality by knocking a meek member of the Cabinet.

Joel’s case is particularly odd since the NBI previously had concluded as forged his signatures in 21 documents of P10-million stolen pork. Yet Justice Sec. Leila de Lima, to whom the NBI reports, charged him just the same.

Making it odder still is that Joel is not alone. Charged with him in the same third batch is independent Rep. Rufus Rodriguez (Cagayan de Oro). Yet he, like Joel, earlier had been cleared by the NBI of P3.5-million pork theft.

 In 2014 when he was first linked to the PDAF scam, Rufus at once asked the Commission on Audit for copies of the supposed incriminating documents. It had to do with pork he supposedly gave away to fake NGOs in 2007, his first year in office. He sent the COA’s 18 pieces of evidence to the NBI Questioned Documents Division, along with papers of subsequent PDAF releases in his official files. The NBI issued the following:

“Questioned Documents Report No. 430-914 dated Oct. 27, 2014, with the following specific finding and categorical conclusion thus:

“Scientific comparative examination of the specimens submitted under magnification using stereoscopic microscope, magnifying lens, and with the aid of photographic enlargements, reveal significant fundamental differences in handwriting characteristics, habits, existing between the questioned and the standard/specimen signature ‘Rufus B. Rodriguez’ such as in:

“Structural patterns of letters;

“Link/connecting strokes;

“Manner of execution of strokes;

 “Minute identifying details.

 “Conclusion: The questioned and the standard/specimen signatures ‘Rufus B. Rodriguez’ were not written by one and the same person.”

As with Joel’s 21 documents certified as forged, de Lima discarded Rufus’ 18 papers. It’s like she’s desperate to disprove criticisms of her growing list of “selective justice.”

In the process, however, selective injustice was done. Rufus laments the tarnishing of his reputation. He had served unblemished records as law school dean, Immigration Commissioner, Misamis Oriental Vice Governor, and chief of staff to a senator – only to be used as the administration’s false proof of justice.

*  *  *

The Sigma Kappa Pi nationalist-service fraternity celebrates its 47th anniversary tomorrow, Aug. 29, with a gala at the Stotsenberg Hotel, Clark Air Base, Pampanga. All alumni and resident brothers are invited.

*  *  *

Catch Sapol radio show, Saturdays, 8-10 a.m., DWIZ (882-AM).

Gotcha archives on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Jarius-Bondoc/1376602159218459, or The STAR website http://www.philstar.com/author/Jarius%20Bondoc/GOTCHA