Imported cars rotting in Cagayan freeport

SANTA ANA, CAGAYAN—Thousands of imported secondhand vehicles, including luxury cars, are being swallowed up by rust and vegetation at the car yards of Cagayan Special Economic Zone and Freeport in Port Irene here, causing a headache on authorities on what to do with them.

There was no final inventory yet on the number and estimated value of the vehicles, all of which were right-hand drive, but the luxury vehicles were estimated to be valued between a low of P1.5 million to up to P20 million when brought into the country via the freeport.

Cagayan Economic Zone Authority (Ceza) administrator Katrina Ponce Enrile said the right-hand drive cars came from different countries and most were forfeited between 2014 and 2015.Ponce-Enrile, the daughter of former senator and now chief presidential legal counsel Juan Ponce-Enrile, was appointed by President Marcos as administrator of Ceza in May last year.

Legal route

According to Ponce-Enrile, the vehicles were not smuggled units but were held because these failed to meet the import regulations of Ceza.

Ponce-Enrile said she planned to look into who owned these vehicles because she believed they have to right to seek legal redress, such as filing charges against former Ceza executives and other individuals involved in the importation of these cars.

Ponce-Enrile explained that the vehicles entered the country legally because they came through the freeport but the owners failed to pay taxes and other fees to the government that would have allowed them to be released from Ceza’s jurisdiction.

“I will look for the owners; the poor owners. I will encourage them to take the legal route. They should file a case against the personalities (responsible for their failure to take possession of their vehicles),” she told the Inquirer in an interview on Friday.

She said she would also ask the owners to write Ceza officials whether they would still want their vehicles by paying the corresponding import duties and fees.

When asked what she would do with the vehicles if the owners could no longer be located, Ponce-Enrile said: “Let us cross the bridge when we get there.”

Some of the imported vehicles were mini wagons, Wrangler jeeps, Porsche Cayenne, Toyota Grandia, Mitsubishi Pajero, Hummer and other branded cars.

‘Serviceable’

During the term of former President Rodrigo Duterte, the government decided to use some of these impounded imported vehicles that were found to be still “serviceable,” distributing about 100 of them to local governments and national government agencies.

It was also during the time of Duterte, who served from June 30, 2016, to June 30, 2022, that Ceza provided 350 secondhand luxury vehicles, including sturdy Hummers and SUVs, to national agencies and local governments in Cagayan Valley and neighboring regions.

About 100 vehicles from Ceza yards, valued at around P1 billion, were also destroyed in 2018 during the Duterte administration, as a means to curb the smuggling of luxury cars.

Ponce-Enrile admitted that the vehicles seized due to violation of import rules have rusted in the open-air compound but the cars and their engines are still “serviceable.”

Despite the government’s ban on used and right-hand drive vehicles, thousands of imported vehicles over the years passed through the Santa Ana port from 2012 until they were forfeited in favor of the government in 2013. The vehicles were meant to be converted into left-hand drive after entry into the country.

Then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, now a representative of Pampanga province, first issued an executive order banning the importation of these vehicles, which was upheld by the Supreme Court in February 2013.

The automotive rebuilding industry of Cagayan province had opposed the ban, calling it a big blow to the imported secondhand vehicle industry. INQ