FOUR containers worth of relief goods supposedly for survivors of supertyphoon Yolanda in 2013 were burned yesterday after they were declared abandoned and condemned. The donor did not pay the importation tax and did not secure a permit for exemption.
The goods were from Belgium, Norway and the United Kingdom. The bulk could have benefited thousands of survivors.
The burning was done at the RRDS Petro Chemical Industries Inc. in Barangay Umapad, Mandaue City. The food stocks already expired.
A container van from Belgium contained baby diapers, used clothing, underwear, kitchenware and toys.
The Bureau of Customs (BOC) Cebu’s documents show that the goods were consigned to ABS-CBN Foundation, DSV Air and Sea, and Wellmade Motors Development. It arrived in January 2014, and was declared abandoned in June last year.
BOC Cebu District Collector Elvira Cruz said all imported goods are bound by duties and taxes, and if they are donations, the donor needs to write a letter to the Department of Finance to ask for tax exemption.
“It wasn’t processed, the donor did not want to pay taxes and at the same time he didn’t have a permit, did not have exemption because the requirement there is to get an exemption from the Department of Finance...It was not computed (the estimate total amount of the items) because the entry was not filed, hindi siya nabuksan (it was not opened),” said Cruz.
“Officially, the donors wrote us letters telling us that they were abandoning all those containers, hence the condemnation and burning of the goods,” added Cruz.
The BOC could not estimate the value of the goods since the documents did not contain a list of what were inside.
Lawyer Kenneth Sesante, acting chief of the BOC Cebu law division, and Cruz said that to address the problem, Congress made amendments to the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act (CMDA). It was passed in 2016 yet, but it still needs its implementing rules and regulations.
“They should seek for exemption. But under the CMDA, the new rules, we give them priority, especially now. So if there are donations now, the Customs will give priority. But they will be the one to initiate their application for exemptions. We can help in the follow-up. Sometimes, they don’t know the requirements, so we hope that there will be a website. But this time, we are going to work this out, kasi ayaw na natin magkaroon ng ganito, it is just a waste, sayang talaga (We don’t want anything like this again, it really is a lot of waste),” said Cruz.
The officials added that it is not only a problem on tax, but also on demurrage or payment for the goods’ storage at the shipyard. Sesante said that for each container they usually charge P1,000 per day. This was also the reason the consignees backed out since the goods have been in the shipyard for already too long.
The BOC earlier tried passing the goods to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), but the latter did not accept them since the food items were already spoiled. The officials said they could not directly hand the goods to any charitable institution, since everything had to pass through the DSWD.
She said that even the used clothing could not be donated to the DSWD because of the moratorium on the acceptance of forfeited used clothing.
The moratorium, pursuant to the order of former DSWD secretary Dinky Soliman dated Aug. 8, 2011, has not been lifted.
“So we decided to just do the condemnation in order to also clear the yard. We can’t just donate or give, until they abandon it,” said Cruz. (EOB, Fe Marie D. Dumaboc)