President Marcos renewed his commitment to protecting public health, saying it is more important than recovering lost revenue from smuggling.
Marcos said this as he led the inspection and condemnation of seized smuggled electronic vapes at the Bureau of Customs (BOC) grounds in Manila on Monday morning, April 7.
READ MORE: https://mb.com.ph/2025/4/7/marcos-lauds-condemnation-smuggled-vapes
Marcos said this as he led the inspection and condemnation of seized smuggled electronic vapes at the Bureau of Customs (BOC) grounds in Manila on Monday morning, April 7.
READ MORE: https://mb.com.ph/2025/4/7/marcos-lauds-condemnation-smuggled-vapes
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NewsTranscript
00:00I'm happy to be able to report to the country that the level of poverty in the United States
00:27and the levels at which we have been able to find these smuggled goods and to eventually
00:39destroy them has increased steadily over the last year and a half.
00:45January to March we are well on our way also to achieving even more seizures of these illegal
00:54vapes.
00:55We can't put these in without any permits, any kind of documentation.
01:01It is being bought here in the Philippines.
01:04And the very serious problem that accompanies that, that there is no documentation, no inspection,
01:12because the ones that we inspected here, we found that there is a poison that has entered
01:21the liquid that is used for vaping.
01:24That is why it is even more worrying because if we look at the packaging, the packaging
01:32is really for children.
01:34That is why their target market is children.
01:37So we will continue to do this and I just wanted to highlight the efforts and the dangers
01:43that we are doing and the dangers that accompany these smuggled vapes.
01:48Far and beyond the loss in revenue to the government, more important to us are the health
01:54issues that these smuggled vapes raise.
01:58What happened today is the condemnation of about 2,977,000 pieces of vapes worth P3.2
02:08billion.
02:09That is the total that we caught, excluding the ones that we caught at the airport.
02:15Eight seizures from container seizures and about two in the implementation of a letter
02:23of authority.
02:24They all came from China.
02:26This is a strong message that this operation will continue.
02:30We will continue to catch illegal vapes.
02:37We will destroy them if we catch them.
02:40If you think you are lucky because sometimes they pass through small items, they pass through
02:48large containers.
02:50On the average, we are getting 6,000 to 7,000 containers.
02:55We can still go after you in your warehouses with the exercise of the visitorial power.
03:01You will go to our officers and intelligence officers and our enforcement officers to catch
03:08and assist these people.
03:10To the youth, I know that sometimes it is cool to have a vape, but remember that this is
03:18a thing that you ingest in your body and it may cause hazards to your health.
03:25We don't know, maybe later there are chemicals in there that will shorten our lives.
03:31So hopefully, let's be careful.
03:33Let's go for products that are safe, that are already being tested by our DTI and FDA.
03:42And of course, the primordial for us is your safety and health.