Monitoring of foreign vessels start

THE government, thru the Bureau of Customs and the Philippine Coast Guard, last week started the monitoring of foreign vessels to ensure they are complying with the country’s laws while in Philippine territorial waters.

Atty. Vincent Maronilla, BOC assistant commissioner and spokesman, said a joint BOC-PCG team actually boarded five foreign-registered, ‘vessels of interest’ VOI) off the coast of Manila to check on possible contrabands, including prohibited and restricted goods.

Foreign vessels that enter Philippine territorial waters, Maronilla explained, could be classified as VOIs if they have been observed to deviate from their original navigational path such as voyaging far from their normal course of operations.

Other vessels were also observed to have conducted sudden change of destination, consequent unloading of cargo, and intentional shutdown of their identification system to avoid detection.

“These circumstances prompted the Bureau of Customs to intensify border control operations by renewing our partnership with the Philippine Coast Guard through a Memorandum of Agreement both parties signed last July 14, 2020,” Maronilla explained.

“This partnership is aimed at improving intelligence sharing and conduct of joint operations in maritime areas of the country,” he added.

The inspection of foreign vessels seeks to verify the completeness of records, safety compliance, cargoes, and other pertinent documents relative to its voyage.

K-9 dogs are also brought aboard the vessels to check on the presence of illegal drugs.

Although illegal drug laboratories operated by international drug syndicates have all been dismantled by the government in previous anti-illegal drugs operations, it is suspected that illegal drugs still managed to get smuggled into the country thru foreign vessels plying the country’s long coastlines.

Maronilla added that aside from preventing the entry of contrabands, the boarding of vessels also seeks to further hamper the operation of smuggling syndicates who also resorted to shipside discharge and casting overboard of goods and merchandise for retrieval later by smaller boats.

Meanwhile, Maronilla also assured the 600-strong Federation of International Cable Association of the Philippines (Fictap) of the bureau’s full support in the release of the group’s importation of various communication equipment.

Maronilla made the assurance after Fictap chair, Estrellita ‘Neng’ Juliano-Tamano, claimed the release of their imports are experiencing a delay of up to one month before these were at the BOC.

The communication equipment being imported by Fictap members are for use by its members for their local cable operations that now include Internet service.

Tamano said the delay is contributing to their inability to speed up Internet service, especially in the countryside being served by their members for lack of available imported components.

Maronilla said the BOC would reach out the group of Tamano to determine the actual reasons for the delay as undue delay in the release of any shipment is contrary to the policy of Comm. Rey Leonardo Guerrero.