Manila: Pro-migrant workers groups and lawmakers called on Customs Commissioner Alberto Lina to apologise for the inspection of parcels sent by an estimated 12 million overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) to relatives in the Philippines because they were made to look like “new smugglers” and no longer the country’s “modern-day heroes”.
“The Bureau of Customs (BOC) should apologise in public, on record. The OFWs deserve that apology. This demand will continue,” Susan Ople, president of the Blas Ople Policy Centre, a nongovernment organisation that specialises on labour migration, told Gulf News, adding the call that was initially made during a senate hearing will be repeated by several labour sectors nationwide.
Looking for smuggled items in balikbayan boxes, parcels that are used to transport items from OFWs to their families, wrongly assume that OFWs are also “smugglers and no longer our modern-day heroes”, lamented Ople.
The customs head did not make a comment.
Other pro-OFW groups that had called earlier for Lina’s resignation said the BOC began inspecting balikbayan boxes for the purpose of raising P600 million (Dh47 million) annual revenues from OFWs, a target set by the Department of Finance, and a policy approved by President Benigno Aquino.
Congressman Roy Seneres of OFW Party at the House of Representatives, suggested: “Only the balikbayan boxes monitored by X-ray machines [that are shown] to contain firearms and drugs should be isolated and inspected for smuggled items.”
Meanwhile, Congressman Sherwin Gatchalian said:, “The BOC should invent another way to run after the big fish, including smugglers of chopped parts of luxury cars.”
Focusing on balikbayan boxes while in search of smuggled goods from seasoned smugglers would “collaterally insult the OFWs”, Gatchalian added.
Explaining that the BOC has already proposed a new policy to ease the tension between OFWs and the BOC, a Customs official who requested for anonymity said, Balikbayan boxes monitored by x-ray machines to carry goods with commercial quantities will be opened and inspected in front of representatives of government agencies and nongovernment organisations that take care of the welfare of OFWs.
Freight forwarders were also asked to submit list of items sent from abroad, for proper taxation, said the same official.
Noting why the BOC resorted to the controversial inspection of balikbayan boxes, the official explained: “Businessmen and smugglers have been using balikbayan boxes to evade taxes and scrutiny of customs officials.”
On August 28, Migrante, a militant group, launched a zero-remittance day for OFWs to pressure the finance department to scrap its target to raise revenues from goods sent by OFWs to their relatives in the Philippines.
However, the debate over the random inspection of balikbayan boxes has intensified even though President Aquino asked the BOC on August 24 to stop its implementation.
