Presidential spokesman Harry Roque said the President disagrees with Pimentel's suggestion as smugglers can easily retrieve the vehicles if they are auctioned off. It will, in effect, just open another opportunity for corruption to creep in and prosper.
Luxury cars at the BOC after being flattened by a bulldozer (Photo by Jansen Romero)
"The message of the President is: The thing speaks for itself. If you hold an auction, corruption can still occur. That's where special arrangements come in," Roque said in Filipino at a press conference in Camarines Sur.
"So the President's message, when he ordered the destruction of the luxury cars is that fixing schemes are over. If you smuggle a car, it will be destroyed. The message is do not smuggle cars," he added.
Pimentel earlier urged the Bureau of Customs to reconsider the destruction of smuggled luxury cars, saying these vehicles still have economic value. He proposed that the cars should be sold at public action, open to serious car collectors abroad. The proceeds, he said, could be used to help calamity victims.
“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 said.
Upon the President's order, the Bureau of Customs recently had 20 smuggled vehicles ran over by a bulldozer in public as a final warning to car smugglers.