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CEBU CITY: With car smuggling still rampant in the
country, it is necessary for the Land Transportation Office (LTO) to
act on these reports.
Car smuggling syndicates in
connivance with unscrupulous LTO personnel in Lapu-Lapu City and the
cities of Toledo, Cebu and Mandaue are responsible for the issuance
of registration certificates and official receipts of smuggled
vehicles that is required in the registration of vehicles.
Operatives of the Bureau of
Customs-Intelligence and Enforcement Group (BOC-IEG) said that the
BOC has greatly reduced the smuggling of imported vehicles in Cebu,
which has prompted car smuggling syndicates to move operations to
other ports in the country.
In a report to Customs Deputy
Commissioner and IEG head Celso Templo, joint operatives of the
BOC-IEG and the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service in
Cebu, indicated that they have managed to prevent the entry of
smuggled high-end luxury vehicles in the region. Instead, car smuggling
syndicates shifted their operations to other ports such as General
Santos City; Port Irene in Cagayan Valley; Port of Davao; San
Fernando, La Union; Cagayan de Oro and even Port of Manila and the
Manila International Container Port, as well as Subic and Clark
Freeports.
“Since the intensified
anti-smuggling campaign in Cebu was launched, not a single unit of
high-end luxury vehicles as well as second-hand cars arrived at the
Port of Cebu,” the report said.
However the efforts of the BOC
might be completely put to waste if the LTO leadership under
Assistant Secretary Alberto Suansing, will not act on reports
regarding the corrupt agency employees engaged in the registration
of illegal vehicles.
It was also learned that the
license plates of smuggled vehicles registered in Mandaue, Toledo
and Cebu cities were later issued in different LTO agencies in Metro
Manila to avoid detection.
Syndicates manage to continue
their illegal activities because they have connections inside the
LTO.
Last year, former LTO chief
Reynaldo Berroya ordered the revamp of six district heads in Cebu as
part of the agency’s effort to fight smuggling of vehicles in the
Central Visayas which at that time was known to be the prime
destination of smuggled automobiles. Berroya said the move was meant
to erase suspicion that registration of smuggled vehicles is easily
done in the region with the help of some LTO personnel.
--William Depasupil and JAMES Konstantin GALVEZ
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