Drilon to oppose BOC budget unless Duterte amends order on pre-shipment inspection

Senate Minority Leader Franklin Drilon on Friday said he will oppose the proposed P3.1-billion budget of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) for 2018 unless President Rodrigo Duterte signs an amended administrative order (AO) that will cover the pre-shipment inspection of containerized cargo.

At the Senate deliberations on the 2018 budget, Drilon pointed out such pre-inspection services used “years ago” could have prevented the smuggling of the more than 600 kilograms of shabu. The said shipment slipped past the BOC last May, and is a subject of an ongoing Senate blue ribbon committee investigation.

“We could have prevented this 604 kilos of shabu being smuggled if there was a pre-shipment inspection service, which would have been made possible a simple amendment of the administrative order,” Drilon said.

Drilon was referring to AO No. 243-A, which presently covers only bulk cargo, non-containerized shipments. Senator Loren Legarda, sponsor of the 2018 budget, said this covers shipments of oil, fuel, steel.

According to Drilon, the proposed amendment is already pending with the Office of the President. Legarda said the proposal was submitted March or April.

“We will oppose the approval of the budget of the Bureau of Customs unless this administrative order is amended...in order  that we can immediately address the issues if these contraband drugs passing through our Customs,” Drilon said.

“We are taking a strong position here that we are opposing the budget unless the amendment is issued, because the Customs must have realized the value of amending this administrative order,” he added.

Inspection services provider Societe Generale de Surveillance (SGS) used to assist the government in pre-shipment inspections from the point of origin of cargoes to stop illegal shipments from getting into the Philippines.

The services, however, were stopped after the allocation for SGS fees were removed by Congress from the national budget.

Later in the day, however, it was clarified during the budget deliberations that there is no pending proposal to amend the AO.

“There is no pending proposal to the administrative order but they told me three hours ago that the OSG (Office of Solicitor General) proposed to Malacañang,” Legarda said.

Legarda said he will give the BOC until Monday to clarify the matter.

In August, the National Bureau of Investigation has filed criminal complaints against two traders and seven others linked to the P6.4 billion worth of illegal drugs from China that slipped Customs inspection. — RSJ, GMA News