BOC orders marking of all imports

All shipments of imported goods entering the country must now be marked with the products they contain and the source abroad, the Bureau of Customs (BOC) said.

This was mandated under Customs Administrative Order (CAO) No. 2-2019 signed by Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III and Customs Commissioner Rey Leonardo B. Guerrero on Jan. 29 this year and Dec. 27 last year, respectively.

CAO 2-2019 served as the implementing rules and regulations (IRR) of Section 710, Chapter 2, Title VII of Republic Act (RA) No. 10863 or the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act (CMTA) signed into law in 2016.

According to the BOC, mandatory marking applies to “all goods or their containers of foreign origin imported into the Philippines for consumption into the domestic territory unless otherwise exempted by other laws, rules and regulations.”

This move will not only “protect consumers from the deceptive practice of passing off imported articles as coming from a particular country other than its actual country of origin” but also allow a systematic monitoring of the import duties imposed and collected from these shipments, the
BOC said.

Under the guidelines, “all goods of foreign origin imported into the Philippines or their containers shall be conspicuously marked in any official language of the Philippines as legibly, indelibly and permanently as the nature of the goods or container will permit and in such manner as to indicate to an ultimate purchaser or end-user or consumer in the Philippines the name of the country of origin of the goods.” —BEN O. DE VERA