Gov’t loses P2M daily to oil smuggling

By Ansbert Joaquin - Inquirer

SUBIC BAY FREEPORT ZONE—The government is losing P2.2 million daily to oil smuggling. In the last seven months, it lost a total of P470 million.

This was revealed on Wednesday by Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority Administrator Armand Arreza, who said that sheer volume (of reported oil importation) gave an SBMA business locator away.

“It has come to our attention that this company brought in 193 million liters of oil over a seven-month period. When we checked based on official SBMA and Bureau of Customs audit reports, 127 million liters of oil were unliquidated,” he said.

“Meaning, what we know is that (currently) they have an inventory of about 50 million liters of oil, where are the others?” he asked.

Arreza said the SBMA audit of the companies was done annually under a customs administrative order.

In the case of the locator, the SBMA received an advance report from the BoC showing that it only paid P20 million in taxes, he said.

Measly sum

From receipt of that report, he said the SBMA worked back to see if the company could liquidate 193 million liters.

“That is when we conducted a full scale audit and we’ve seen several discrepancies. So Antonio Villar (head of the Presidential Anti Smuggling Group) filed cases against them,” Arreza said during a press briefing on Wednesday.

“When a truck loaded oil at the tank farm and went out of Subic that is smuggling. Isn’t it? If they have not paid any taxes, that is smuggling,” he said.

He also said 5,498 trucks loaded at the tank farm in a span of seven months.

12 million liters

“How could that be? How did that happen?” he asked.

Arreza said material balances reconciliation from the company managing the tank farm showed that in December last year, 514 trucks loaded 12 million liters of diesel.

Officials of the SBMA locator claimed in their liquidation report that they sold two million liters to Asian International Auctioneer, a vehicle importer here in Subic, according to Arreza.

He said they wrote AIA to confirm. AIA replied that it “did not purchase any diesel fuel or gasoline” from the Subic locator.

He said an SBMA audit has placed the volume of unliquidated oil at 138 million liters.

“At P3.30 in tax per liter, the figure would reach P472 million,” he said. “And if there is an element of fraud, you multiply that amount by eight as penalty and that would reach P3.2 billion.”

Arreza said the SBMA has suspended the importation of the Subic locator and withheld its inventory of 51 million liters of diesel worth P1.7 billion in a tank farm in Subic.

Smuggling bases

“The SBMA is withholding the inventory precisely because if the company is found to have defrauded the government and fails to pay P3 billion, then its stock (of oil) goes to the government,” he said.

Villar’s task force was also investigating the smuggling of cars through the Subic and Clark economic zones.

Several luxury vehicles and sports utility vehicles that were believed smuggled through Subic were destroyed recently in a move that the government hoped would discourage smuggling.