INQUIRER.net
By: Aries Joseph Hegina, August 23rd, 2015 04:50 PM
SCREENGRAB from Change.org
A Change.org petition calling for Senator Miriam Defensor Santiago to stop the Bureau of Customs (BoC) from implementing stricter inspections on balikbayan boxes of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) has been signed by more than 67 thousand people in a span of two days.
The petition, which is entitled “STOP Philippine Customs to Impose Tighter Rules for Balikbayan Boxes,” was launched by a certain Julius Lajara who claims that he is based at the United Arab Emirates.
“A lot of OFW were being affected of the customs to impose tighter rules for balikbayan boxes and will also put additional tax on it. We all know how much corruption is happening in customs right now. We cannot deny it. Add to that they are aggresively telling that they have the rights to open boxes, if something is missing after the inspection we have the rights to report it to the authorities. Who is the authorities they are saying? Even if that happen and we report it we all know that there will be no good output,” Lajara said in his petition.
The petition has been signed by 67, 235 supporters as of 4:50 p.m. on Sunday. Lajara wants to gather 75,000 signatures for his petition.
“This is just another way of corruption. We OFW work so hard for our family and Customs will just take that away from us,” said a certain Jelyn Bernales who signed for the petition.
Kris Sandoval, one of those who signed the petition, also aired her opinion on the issue: “I’m not favor to that policy because balikbayan boxes are personal properties of OFW, the authorities doesn’t have the rights to open that without our permisions.”
The BoC clarified that it will not impose additional taxes and will only conduct random inspections on balikbayan boxes.
It maintained that the stringent rules will be implemented in order to deter smugglers from sending contrabands into the coutnry through balikbayan boxes.
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