Tuesday, March 04, 2008 LTO to submit 3 sacks of papers to probers
THE Land Transportation Office (LTO) 7 will bring to the House Committee on Good Government three sacks of documents related to the 6,703 vehicles reportedly registered in its office in Toledo City in 2006 alone.
LTO 7 Director Raul Aguilos said the submission of the voluminous documents was ordered by DOTC Assistant Secretary Alberto Suansing, who attended the committee hearing last Feb. 13.
In that meeting, former LTO-Toledo City registrar Gavino Padin admitted that he registered all the vehicles in a span of one year even though some of the owners are residing in areas as far as Luzon and Mindanao.
The figure is more than double the almost 3,000 vehicles registered in 2005, which Rep. Antonio V. Cuenco (Cebu City, south) describes as incredible.
Although Padin presented to the committee some folders of records related to vehicle registrations in Toledo, Cuenco has suspected that the documents consist only of registrations with complete requirements while the questionable ones were being hidden to avoid prosecution.
Cuenco said they will create a sub-committee to be composed of at least two or three congressmen to examine and evaluate the documents from LTO-Toledo City.
He added that lawyer Rey Umali, Bureau of Customs (BOC) deputy commissioner for revenue and collection monitoring group (RCMG), will be invited to shed light on why no importers and brokers are in jail even if their names appeared in the list as involved.
But Umali, in an earlier interview with Sun.Star Cebu, said that since the creation of the Run After The Smugglers (Rats) group, they already filed 60 cases against 265 respondents before the City Prosecutor’s Office throughout the country. He said 24 cases were already filed in court.
Umali said the United States Assistance for International Development (USAID) has donated US$3.1 million worth of computers, equipment and personnel trainings to improve the BOC’s anti-smuggling campaign.
Rep. Pablo John Garcia of the Cebu third district where LTO-Toledo City is located said the hearing tomorrow will focus on the involvement of customs personnel in the vehicle smuggling.
He said that the untaxed vehicles passed the customs zone before these were registered with LTO.
Also during the Feb. 13 hearing, Rep. Andy Salvacion (Leyte) tried to pin down Port of Cebu District Collector Ricardo Belmonte and Customs Commissioner Napoleon Morales in the smuggling issue.
Morales shot back by discussing the rampant vehicle smuggling at the Port of Subic in 2006 when the congressman was still the district collector in the area. (EOB)
