Consistent with its mandate to collect lawful revenues for the country and despite the pandemic, the BOC, based on the preliminary report from Revenue Collection Monitoring Group (RCMG), surpassed its annual collection target for 2021 by 4.7% or P29.016 B, collecting a total of P645.765 B against its target of P616.749 B, even higher than the pre-pandemic collection of P630.31 B in 2019.

Customs Commissioner Angelito Alvarez ordered the seizure today of 16 twenty-footer container vans laden with China-made ceramic tiles.

The Bureau of Customs filed today a P1.1 billion smuggling case against meat processing firm Foodsphere, Inc. for undervaluing its buffalo meat importations from India by more than 32 percent.

Another set of smugglers learned the hard way that “smuggling no longer pays” following the seizure today by the Bureau of Customs of some P30 million worth of undervalued and prohibited articles at the Manila International Container Port.

Thousand of counterfeit goods were destroyed this morning as the Bureau of Customs conducted its second biggest condemnation of confiscated smuggled products this year.

Customs Commissioner Angelito Alvarez has ordered the adoption of worldwide freight rate reference for containerized cargoes to deny tax cheats one of their age-old tricks for duties and taxes avoidance.

On fake tariff-free forms

The campaign against the use of fake forms on tariff-free goods netted its first catch with the filing today of a smuggling case against an importer who submitted a bogus ASEAN Common Effective Preferential Tariff (ASEAN CEPT) form to support the non-payment of duties on her shipment of imported fabrics.

The Bureau of Customs seized today two containers of Chinese onions which the consignee tried to pass off as juice.

Customs Commissioner Angelito Alvarez ordered today the seizure of all imported poppy seeds and poppy seeds-containing products and the filing of criminal and administrative charges against erring importers.

Some P20 million worth of black corals, a protected species that cannot be legally harvested, were seized today on orders of Customs Commissioner Angelito Alvarez.