Senate President Koko Pimentel III recently asked the Bureau of Customs (BOC) to consider courses of action other than destroying smuggled luxury cars.
Pimentel raised the question following the public destruction of about 30 smuggled luxury cars during the 166th Founding Anniversary celebrations of BOC.
“Unlike cigarettes or drugs, which have no good intrinsic value to humans and which must be destroyed when confiscated, cars and other manufactured items have economic value, and luxury cars particularly have great value to serious car collectors,” the senate chief stated.
In the manufacture of these luxury cars, a lot of energy has been expended, which I am sure has contributed to over-all global warming. Let us not waste the energy, resources, and intellectual effort consumed in the making of these luxury cars,” the senate head added.
The Senate leader proposed to sell them instead at public auction, but open only to serious car collectors based abroad, adding that the proceeds can be used to help calamity victims.
We don’t want them (luxury cars) to be auctioned, only for those who smuggled them in, to benefit.
“We don’t want them to be auctioned, only for those who smuggled them in, to benefit. But if we sell them to buyers abroad, then we would have achieved the same objective and earned money for the government for use in worthwhile causes like helping victims of natural calamities,” he explained.
Pimentel, nonetheless, said he is aware of the reasons why the government opted to destroy these cars despite gaining mixed reactions from the public via social media.