Senator Bongbong Marcos on Saturday called the Bureau of Customs (BOC) “shameless” for restricting the ability of overseas Filipino workers (OFW) to send good or gifts to their loved ones back home via “balikbayan boxes”.

“To the BoC, I ask: Have you no shame? For every OFW, a balikbayan box is the equivalent of his or her love letter to a spouse and the rest of the family,” pointed out the politiko.

“Every item inside that box was bought with a specific person and purpose in mind, bought for with the hard-earned money of our modern-day heroes. So if a single item there gets lost, can you imagine how that feels to an OFW who invested so much emotion and money just to get those goods home?”

According to the BOC, taxable items are sometimes shipped within balikbayan boxes, thus justifying the need for stricter inspection and content limitations.

The Bureau said that they would also selectively and randomly open these boxes to check for smuggled times.

Marcos warned Bureau of Customs commissioner Albert Lina against carrying out further restrictions on the use of balikbayan boxes by the OFWs including a plan to impose taxes or additional fees on forwarding costs for OFW boxes.

“You seem bent on bullying our OFWs while turning a blind eye on the large-scale smuggling that goes on in nearly all ports across the archipelago,” Marcos told Lina.

The lawmaker also challenged the BOC to justify its much-panned plan of opening balikabayan boxes. “Let them defend themselves during the budget deliberations. Specifically, I would like to know how many bigtime smugglers have they managed to put behind bars during the five years under this administration,” he said.

Marcos also cited the need to investigate the perennial shortfalls in the collections of the BOC. “Are they planning to impose taxes on balikbayan boxes to make up for their annual collection deficit? In bullying our OFWs, they managed to expose their own internal deficiencies.”

“Ayusin muna nila ang bakuran nila dahil mas nakakapinsala ang korapsyon sa loob ng BOC kesa sa mga balikbayan boxes na pinapadala ng mga lehitimong OFWs.” (Randy K. Ortega)