Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III has welcomed the setting up of the Environmental Protection and Compliance Division (EPCD) within the Bureau of Customs (BOC) to monitor and control the entry of hazardous substances and other wastes into the country.

The creation of the EPCD was in response to Dominguez’s directive last July to BOC Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero to form a special strike team at the agency to guard against the entry of waste materials that other countries are attempting to dump in the Philippines.

“This strike team should work in tandem with other concerned government agencies in mounting a 24/7 watch over, and prevent, the entry of hazardous or toxic wastes into our country, in keeping with our environmental laws,” Dominguez said.

Dominguez issued the directive during a recent Department of Finance (DOF) Executive Committee (Execom) meeting after Guerrero reported that he had called on his counterparts in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to strengthen the law enforcement capabilities of the organization’s member-states not only in the war against drug trafficking, but also in preventing the region from being a dumping ground for the hazardous materials and wastes of other countries.

Guerrero said his fellow customs officials from the ASEAN member-states reacted positively to his proposal.

In response, Dominguez said during the DOF Execom meeting that “it’s time we put up something like an environmental unit in the Customs (bureau) to really act on this garbage issue.”

Following Dominguez’s directive, Guerrero issued Customs Memorandum Order (CMO) No. 38-2019, institutionalizing EPCD, which will become a permanent and specialized unit within the bureau.

The EPCD’s mandate covers monitoring the processing of shipments of hazardous substances, waste products, nuclear wastes, recyclable products or substances under the regulatory control of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR).

Under Republic Act (RA) No. 6969 or the Toxic Substances and Hazardous and Nuclear Wastes Control Act of 1999, the BOC being one of the regulatory agencies, is mandated to assist the DENR in monitoring and preventing the entry of hazardous and nuclear wastes into the country.

The new division, which will be under the BOC’s Enforcement and Security Service (ESS) of the Enforcement Group (EG) is also tasked to recommend the issuance of alert orders and pre-lodgment control orders against shipments suspected of containing goods in violations of the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act (CMTA) and environmental laws.

It is also tasked to investigate cases and to make recommendations for prosecution of violations of CMTA, in relation to environmental and other applicable laws, rules and regulations.

Guerrero also reported to Dominguez during the Execom meeting that other ASEAN member-states like Malaysia have thanked the Philippines during the 28th meeting of the ASEAN Directors-General of Customs held at the Lao Republic for setting the example in the region when President Duterte stood pat in his decision to compel Canada to immediately repatriate 69 containers of trash that were dumped in Manila six years ago.

After Canada failed to meet the original May 15 deadline set by President Duterte for the return of the imported wastes, the government recalled its ambassador and consuls to Canada to demonstrate its “diminished diplomatic relations” with the North American country.

This action prompted Canada to move its earlier June 30 commitment in repatriating the waste to the Philippines’ revised May 30 deadline.

Other ASEAN countries like Malaysia and Cambodia are also working to have wastes dumped in their countries returned to Canada.

“Malaysia was thanking the Philippines for setting the example, this problem about the wastes, because now it has come to the consciousness of the international community, this garbage problem,” Guerrero said during the Execom meeting.

Guerrero said that as a result of President Duterte’s tough stand on the issue, he has received reports that plans to have other shipments of wastes transported to the country have now been scuttled.

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