SEN. Juan Edgardo M. Angara said the Department of Finance (DoF) needs to revise its implementing rules on duty and tax-free balikbayan boxes, which he said run counter to the intent of the Customs modernization law.
Customs Administrative Order No. 5-2016 states that the value of “balikbayan boxes per sender in any calendar year shall not exceed P150,000.”
Mr. Angara said during an oversight committee hearing that the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act (CMTA) actually calls for an Overseas Filipino Worker (OFW) import privilege of P150,000 per box tax-free, three times a year.
“We passed this law to recognize the contribution of OFWs to the economy. We need to give them their due,” Mr. Angara said, speaking in Filipino.
The import privilege covers personal effects, and not goods deemed to be in commercial quantities.
DoF Assistant Secretary Mark dennis Y.C. Joven said during the hearing that there is an “ambiguity” in the language of the law, leading to the DoF’s diverging interpretation.
Rep. Sharon S. Garin, a member of the oversight committee and who was part of the CMTA bicameral committee, pointed out that the DoF should have “referred to the records of the bicam hearing in determining the intent of the law.”
Sought for further comment, the Department of Finance Assistant Secretary Paola A. Alvarez said in an email on Tuesday that “the law only mentions up to P150,000.”
“In interpreting the law, exemptions are strictly construed. Following this, there is no basis for us to construe the provision to mean it shall be P150,000 per box. There is no legal basis,” she said.
Furthermore, Ms. Alvarez said that “if the real intention of the law was to exempt up to 450,000 pesos then they should have explicitly said so.”
During the oversight committee hearing on the review of the CMTA implementation, it was noted that an OFW typically sends a balikbayan box to his or her family every three or four months. — Mario M. Banzon
