Why BOC shredded P50M worth of fake branded shoes

If it were solely up to the Bureau of Customs (BOC), it would simply donate to the needy and the unfortunate the P50 million worth of smuggled fake branded shoes and slippers it destroyed on Tuesday, but the law says otherwise.

 

Instead the bureau threw the 150,000 pairs of footwear from China into shredding machines.

 

"Bakit hindi na lang ipadala sa mga nasalanta para may bago naman silang shoes?" said one netizen who goes by the name Cat Person.

 

Netizens made such suggestions as reaction to the BOC move. 

 

"If it were up to us, we would donate those items in a heartbeat to the less fortunate, but we are bound by law to destroy fake products," Jay Crisostomo of the BOC Public Information and Assistance Division told GMA News Online on Wednesday.

 

He cited Section 190 of the Intellectual Property Code of the Philippines which states that the BOC Commissioner is "empowered to make rules and regulations for preventing the importation or exportation of infringing articles prohibited... and for seizing and condemning and disposing of the same in case they are discovered after they have been imported or before they are exported."

 

Leonardo Limbo, enforcement officer for the Intellectual Property Office of the Philippines, said the Tariff and Customs Code of the Philippines requires that counterfeit goods "should be put out of commerce – they don't go back to trade."

 

The brands also do not allow the government to donate the seized items, Crisostomo noted.

 

"We cannot donate because the brands does not allow it. They don't want to donate them because it's like allowing their brands to be used and displayed. It will affect their sales and will not cure the sickness of patronizing fake brands," he said.

 

Among the global brands that were destroyed were Nike, Adidas, Converse, Skechers, The North Face, Leaveland, Merrell, Lacoste, Vans, Havaianas, and Ipanema.

 

A 21-year old college student, who sells fake branded shoes online for extra income, said the destruction of the knockoffs was not a good news for sellers like her. For obvious reasons she asked  not to be named.

 

"Kung titingnan, sa part ng mga nagbebenta, syempre hindi maganda 'yun... Nakakapanghinayang 'yung mga nasirang shoes na 'yun kahit fake kasi para sa amin, negosyo pa rin 'yun," she told GMA News Online.

 

For those who patronize fake rubber shoes, the news was a big letdown.

 

"Disappointed kasi 'di hamak na mas mahal ang original kesa sa fake... At least naka-rubber shoes ka na parang original sa halagang P1,000," another student, Joacquin Amoranto, told GMA News Online in a separate interview.

 

"Kaya ako bumibili ng fake kasi hindi halata... Okay ang quality. 'Di nga lang ganun kagaan at pulido pero worth it naman," Amoranto said. – VS, GMA News