EVERY TIME AN inquiry on agricultural smuggling is conducted, the congressional probers almost always demand a list of big-time smugglers, not the small fry. They would brusquely stress: “Give us the names of the biggies,” they insist in jostling and clamorous fashion. Exasperation is written on their faces, and, in no time at all, decibels are raised to much higher levels than is necessary. Sometimes, they even ignore their own rules. And they tend to forget their real role: to investigate in aid of legislation or to pursue their collective oversight power. In either case, the rights of resource persons are supposed to be respected, nay, protected, under the fundamental law of the land.
Yet, we often see how these probers have disrespected the rights of witnesses and resource persons. Some behaved as if they could just licentiously go beyond the bounds of decency and reason—they yelled, they hollered, they insulted, and at times, they even threatened their invited resource persons.
What happened to the old notion of chivalry markedly present and observed in both houses of Congress in the days of yore? Has raising voices during legislative inquiries been proven to effectively ferret out “the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? When has the truth ever become a function of decibels?
Or, is anyone ready to defer to Sulla, who asked the Roman Senate: “When did the Senate ever represent the people?”
But the congressional probers’ impatience over the slow progress of their investigation is not misplaced. For, despite the awesome powers of Congress, the economic saboteurs—and their “indispensable partners” in government, still run rings around these legislative committees. In not so few instances, government witnesses and resource persons were noticed to have mastered the art of stonewalling, of feigning ignorance, of opting to be labeled as tanga rather than to be implicated as kasama in shenanigans being investigated. These stuffs when strutted before the solons will certainly get someone’s goat. And understandably so, because the legislators are—just like us, enraged by the ebb and flow of agricultural smuggling.
Big-time smugglers include those individuals whose identities ring a bell that reverberates in every nook and cranny of the customs zone, albeit their names do not appear on customs documents. And for the Customs authorities to not know them, identify them, let alone hold them accountable for the systemic fraud on customs is—to the legislators—unacceptable. And it doesn’t sound like a valid excuse that the biggies’ names do not appear on customs papers.
Put simply: if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, smells like a duck, in all likelihood, it is a duck! Cast the dragnet pronto!
Hence, this question: Is it, at all, possible for anyone whose name does not appear in any customs document, to be indicted for agricultural smuggling—large scale or otherwise?
The Customs Modernization and Traffic Act (RA 10863), the new law that expressly repealed the 1978 Tariff and Customs Code of the Philippines may be instructive, thus:
“Smuggling refers to the fraudulent act of importing any goods into the Philippines, or the act of assisting in receiving, concealing, buying, selling, disposing or transporting such goods, with full knowledge that the same has been fraudulently imported, or the fraudulent exportation of goods. Goods referred to under this definition shall be known as smuggled goods.” [Emphases ours.]
Verily, one does not need to be the one who fraudulently imported the goods—the “act of assisting in receiving, concealing, buying, selling, disposing or transporting such goods, with full knowledge that the same has been fraudulently imported,” will make one liable for smuggling, as defined by the CMTA.
RA 10863 classifies the commission of smuggling into two (2) types, namely:
“Outright smuggling [which] refers to an act of importing goods into the country without complete customs prescribed importation documents, or without being cleared by customs or other regulatory government agencies, for the purpose of evading payment of prescribed taxes, duties and other government charges.” [Emphases supplied.]
and,
“Technical smuggling [which] refers to the act of importing goods into the country by means of fraudulent, falsified or erroneous declaration of goods to its nature, kind, quality, quantity or weight, for the purpose of reducing or avoiding payment of prescribed taxes, duties and other charges.” [Emphases supplied.]
Clearly, smuggling, in its many nuances, is predicated on fraud—actual fraud. And, devoid of any pretentious habiliment, the fraud contemplated by law “must be intentional fraud, consisting of deception willfully and deliberately done or resorted to in order to induce another to give up some right,” said the Supreme Court in CTA v. Farolan.
But, then, again: must the author of the fraud have to be named in the accompanying importation documents for him to be indictable?
