VALENZUELA City District 2 Rep. Magtanggol “Magi” Gunigundo lambasted the Bureau of Customs for its failure to prevent big-time  smuggling done with impunity involving 2,219 container vans with an estimated value of P2 billion consigned to three importers from January to May 2011.

Gunigundo’s wrath  happened during the House sub-committee hearing presided by Ilocos Norte Rep. Rodolfo Fariñas on Aug. 1, 2011.

He said this was done despite E2M Phase 4 Customs System that facilitates the monitoring of the movement of transhipment of goods in the three major ports of the country -- Port of Manila, Manila International Container Port and the Port of Batangas.

Under the E2M Phase 4 Customs System laid down in CMO 43-2010 issued last Oct. 13, 2010, a tagging and electronic mail system is used to ensure that the movement of transhipment cargoes are accounted for and diversions can immediately be detected. 

Practically all Customs offices involved in operations, including the Office of the Customs Commissioner, have access to the system that displays whether the goods for transhipment have been tagged as “released “ at the port of discharge and “received” by the port of destination.

Aside from this, notification and confirmation messages through electronic mail are to be sent by the ports of discharge and destination to each other. 

This new system which was implemented January 25, is a landmark accomplishment of the Bureau of Customs that allegedly invested P450 million to acquire and build the systems technology and is a great leap forward from the medieval manual procedures of relying on boatnotes and telegrams that require weekly reconciliation and are susceptible of being counterfeited.

Gunigundo questioned the officials of Port of Manila and MICP for approving transhipment permits even if the previous transhipments owned by the three consignees have not been tagged as “Received” by the Port of Batangas through the E2M computer system.  

At the same time, these officials did not get any confirmation message via electronic mail from the Port of Batangas. These officials sheepishly claimed that they relied on boatnotes presented to them by the Customs guards who escorted the vans to the Port of Batangas since they were still transitioning to the new system.