Tuesday, August 21, 2007 Stiffer penalties v. smugglers sought By Gil Alfredo B. Severino
AFTER attending the 54th Philippine Sugar Technologists Convention in Cebu City, Representative Monico Puentevella expressed the utmost concern of sugar industry leaders regarding smuggling.
Puentevella stressed that sugar industry leaders are worried over the actual and technical smuggling which posed grave threat to the very survival of the industry.
This prompted him to remark, “Sounds like smuggling is back in town. Almost every industry is affected.
Illegally imported products are in agriculture, groceries, hardware, auto supplies, flooding upscale malls and wet markets, from onions to shoes.”
Because of this, that would mean stashing away billions in revenue losses, Puentevella filed House Bill No. 2058 in the first regular session of the 14th Congress, declaring smuggling as economic sabotage with stiffer penalty.
Economic sabotage, according to the bill is “any act or activity which undermines and weakens the viability of economic systems due to the effects of smuggling.”
The bill also included offenses like trafficking, counterfeiting, black marketing or mass movement of local or foreign currency, price manipulation, tax evasion, swindling and violation of land reform.
The lawmaker hoped that this bill will put enough teeth and deterrent to technical and actual smuggling as the penalty would not be less than half a million pesos depending on the degree of the crime.
Also, House Bill 2058, which is otherwise known as “An Act Declaring All forms of Smuggling as Economic Sabotage and Providing Penalties Thereof,” defined smuggling as both actual and technical.
The bill further explained that actual smuggling is bringing in goods without passing through the Bureau of Customs; while technical smuggling is bringing in goods by undervaluation, misdeclaration and misclassification so as to pay lower fees.
“Other people might not realize this but smuggling which was estimated to be P200 billion or more annually, according to United Nations sources could mean massive lay-offs and bankruptcies which had already happened to the sugar industry before as it cannot compete with smuggled goods,” Puentevella said.
Meanwhile, Puentevella also stressed that the anti-smuggling efforts of the government can easily be defeated by unscrupulous government officials, thus the house bill provided for a stiffer penalty for these officials who are involved in facilitating actual and technical smuggling.
The bill says, “Any government employee or official found guilty of being an accomplice to this practices shall be imprisoned and benefits due to a government employees will be forfeited.”
