spot_img
28.6 C
Philippines
Friday, March 29, 2024

Binay says P30b a year being lost to smugglers

- Advertisement -

VICE President Jejomar Binay on Wednesday slammed the government’s failure to curb smuggling, saying smuggling was causing more than P30 billion in revenue losses a year.

“Billions of pesos of revenues are lost in smuggling. Billions more are wasted due to government agencies’ wrong spending,” the United Nationalist Alliance’s presidential bet said.

Vice President Jejomar Binay

Binay made his statement even as a legal expert said the Office of the Ombudsman’s affirmation of probable cause against Vice President Jejomar Binay and his son, dismissed Makati Mayor Junjun Binay,   over the allegedly overpriced Makati City Hall Building II was a repudiation of a  Supreme Court decision in November last year.

Former Integrated Bar of the Philippines national president Vicente Joyas said the Ombudsman should have recognized the high court ruling saying the abandonment of the condonation doctrine was prospective and could not be applied to Junjun Binay’s case.

“If the Ombudsman insists on not applying the condonation doctrine in the Junjun Binay case, the Ombudsman is acting in total disobedience of the ruling of the SC in the Junjun case that the abandonment of the condonation doctrine must be applied prospectively,” Joyas said.

- Advertisement -

Former University of the East law dean Amado Valdez agreed.

Jejomar Binay said for almost six straight years under the Aquino administration, the Bureau of Customs had failed to attain its annual revenue target due to unabated smuggling.

He cited a Commission on Audit report saying Customs collected just P366.9 billion in 2015, which was 16 percent short of the total collection target of P436.5 billion for that year.

The 2015 collection of P366.9 billion was also lower by 0.6 percent compared to the 2014 collection of P369.2 billion.

UNA said rampant smuggling had become widespread because of the inability of the government to prevent smuggled goods from flooding the local market.

In his speech kicking off UNA’s campaign in Mandaluyong, Binay vowed to fight all forms of illegal activity, adding his priority was to uplift the lives of the Filipino people left behind by the current administration.

- Advertisement -

LATEST NEWS

Popular Articles