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.
Comments