Lito Alvarez, just do it!

LITO Alvarez is a total bust as a golfer. It is actually good news for golf that he has announced that he is giving up the game. He was suspended as an Alabang Golf Club member after he was caught cheating during the last Mango Tee, Alabang’s most prestigious tournament.

But there may be hope for newly-appointed Customs Commissioner Angelito Alvarez if he can do something about rampant smuggling that has deprived the government of badly-needed revenues.

Latest reports from the BoC indicate that Alvarez has already barred haoshiaos at Custom inspection areas. This is a necessary first step in the effort to make all transactions open and aboveboard. He should follow through with other measures that would send a stern message to smugglers and their protectors in government that their days are numbered.

Perhaps, Alvarez could turn his attention the well-reported rampant smuggling of Turkish flour. A very detailed report on the smuggling operation of at least eight companies has already preceded Alvarez at Customs, something which he should ask the Commissioners’ Office (which he now holds ) to immediately produce said report .

But since Commissioner Alvarez seems to be one with us in wanting to stop smuggling, including that of low-nutrient and, probably even (according to many), contaminated Turkish flour, here are some of the things he will find in the report.

According to the report which Customs should use as a lead to find and prosecute the Turkish flour smugglers, just on the Turkish floor imports, at least P51 million in import duties and value-added taxes has been lost to government in the first five months of 2010 alone.

The P51-million estimate pertains only to the operation of the eight companies. Thus, one can imagine that an even bigger amount is missing from government coffers when the operations of other smugglers are factored in.

Two of the eight companies used the Manila International Container Port (MICP) as point of entry while a third used both the MICP and the Port of Manila.

The first smuggler cheated government of at least P13.8 million by importing 8,592 metric tons but declaring only 5,389 mt; while the second imported 7,086 mt while declaring only 4,961, thus evading the payment of P6.9 million. And, the third smuggler-importer brought in 10,488 mt but undervalued it by 23.3 percent to save P6.9 million which should have been collected by the BoC.

The imported Turkish flour had been undervalued for as low as $24.77 per mt when the reference value of Turkish flour at Customs stands at $300 per mt.

Turkish flour smuggler-importers are doing their thing with total impunity, as if mocking President Aquino and Commissioner Alvarez to try to stop them.

Although the flour smuggling was done in the first five months of this year -- in the dying days of the Arroyo administration –these smugglers-importers can still be taught a lesson if Alvarez acts now.

Or will Alvarez wait for the next report which will be on how Turkish Flour Smuggling was perpetrated in the fist few days of the Aquino watch?

Commissioner Alvarez faces a big challenge in cleaning up the Customs bureau that is widely believed to be one of the most corrupt in the entire bureaucracy. With President Aquino having given him clear marching orders to stop smuggling, Alvarez is in a position to do what others before him have failed to achieve: Restore the credibility of the Customs bureau.

He can very well start his cleaning up by going after the most notorious – the smuggler-importers of Turkish flour.

If he can clean up the BoC, something not even addressed in the last few administrations, Lito Alvarez would have done his country a great service and who knows that even rabid golfers could actually forgive him his golfing transgression.

-Ducky Paredes

Source: http://www.malaya.com.ph/07232010/edducky.html