CTA Case No. 3201 (Decision)

IPOBLJr. Ol" THF.. i' rtlt.tJ>l'N~i JJRl' OF TAX APPEAU (lf:Kl.ON C'JTV CHARLES ANDRULIS, / Pe1d t:..ioner, - versus - C.T.A . CASE NO. 3201 COMMISSIONER OF CUSTOMS, Respondent. X- - - - - - - - - - - X DEC I S I 0 N Petitioner see:ks to vacate re:s.ponden1i: Commissioner o f Customs' de c ision in Customs Case No . 80-25 dated DecembeJr 15, 1980, relative: to the f o rfeiture of various foreign currencies allegedly found violative �of the pert.ine:nt provision of Section 3, Centr al Bank Circular No. 534, quoted as follows: "Section 3. Unless specifically authoriz.ed by the Central Bank or allowe�d. und.er existing internat.ional agreements. or Central Bank re:gulations, no pe�rson shall take or transmit or attempt to take or transmit: foreign e.xchange' , in any f.orm, out of the Philippines directly, through other persons, through mails, or through international carriers. "The provisions of this section shall not apply to tourists and non-resi- d.ent temporary visitors who are taking or s.ending out of the Philippines their own foreign exchang.e broug1h t in by them." It appe�ars that on February 22, 1980, peti- tioner, an American outgping passenger on board the Philippine Airlines flight 501 bound for � ~:' 31 5

DECISION - CTA CASE NO. 3201 - 2- Singapore was found by the Customs authorities to have in possession various foreign currencies, viz.: US $59,639.00; R 53, 1 00.00 (Indonesian rupiahs) .and S $308.00 (Singapore dollars)'� with- out any supporting documents required under the aforesaid regulation of the Central Bank of the Philippines. And for such, the Customs author- ities lodged a complaint with the Pasay City Fiscal's office against petitioner pursuant to the applicable provision of Section 34 of Republic Act No. 265 or the Central Bank Charter which penal iz.es the� violation of any "order, instruction, rule or regulation issued by t.he Monetary Board", in addition to t.he sei z;ure and forfeiture: proceed- ings in the Bureau of Customs against: the res. Suffice it to state that the same was dismissed for lack of merit. Thus, based on the same incident and violation, the seized currencies were administratively pro- ceeded against under Section 2530(f) .of the Tariff and Customs Code, providing insofar as pertinent - "Section 2530. - Property subject to forfeiture under Tariff and Customs laws. - Any vehicle, vessel or aircraft:, cargo, article and other ob�jects shall, under the

- DECISION - CTA CASE NO. 3201 - 3- fol l owing conditions be subject to forfeiture: XXX XXX .XXX "(f) Any article the importation or exportation of which is effected or attempted contrary to law, or any article of prohibited import- ation or exportation, and all othe:r: articles which, in the� opinion of the Collector have been used, are or were entered to be used as instruments in the importation or exportation of the former. XXX XXX XXXo II The District Collector of Customs, Manila Inter- national Airport Customshouse, decreed the for:- feiture of the subject foreign exchange in favor of the government (Sei~ure Identification No. 4162-80) ~ which on appeal by the petitioner, was affirmed by the respondent Commissioner of Customs in a decision rendered on December 15, 1980. Petitioner inter- posed this appeal . In assailing the legality of the forfeiture, petitioner maintains that he was a tourist upon entry on February 20, 1980 and on arrival at the Manila In te rn at ional Airport the foreign cur.renc:ies he had brought were not declared there being no such requirement; that he billeted for the brief duration of his s tay at the Century Park Sheraton - 31 7

� DECISION - CTA CASE NO. 320 1 - 4- Manila hotel; that on his departure on February 22, 1980 he had still the amounts of US $59,639.00, R 53,100.00 (I ndonesian rupiahs) and S $308.00 (Sing.apore dollars); that the same we:re seiz.ed from him on board the Philippine Airlines flight 501 bound for Singapore by the Customs authorities; and that he comes within the purview of the exempt- ion proviso of Section 3, Central Bank Circular No. 534, supra. The argument urged by the respondent is that "there is no showing that t-he claimant (petitioner) brought into the Philippines the various foreign currencies c onfiscated from him on February 22, 1980 on board PAL flight 501 bound for Sin9Japore" and "On the other hand, the deliberate acts of claimant of checking in our hotels and slipping, out without the knowledge of hotel authorities and without paying his hotel bills not only flaunt our laws but also negate his alleg.ations that he owns and brought to the Philippines the subject foreign exchange in question. x x The most plaus- ible conclusion is that claimant is a carrier of foreign exchange in the employ of a syndicate engaged in the salting of foreign exchange out of 31 S

� DECISION - CTA CASE NO. 3201 - 5- the Phi l ippines which i s already hard pressed in meeting the ast:..ronomical cost:. of imported oil for lack of fore i g,n exchang,e . " The record raises the issue as to whether the regulatory provision of Section 3 of the Central Bank Circular No. 534, supr:a, was violated as. to warrant the sanction of a forfeiture under Customs laws. The question at its core is one of an effective applica tion of the exception in the subject circular , read thus: "The provisions of this section shall not apply t.o tourists and non- resident temporary visitors who are taking or sending out of the Philippines their own foreign exchange brought in by them." (2nd par. Section 3, Circular 534) As disclosed, petit-ioner had the status of a t-ourist. at the t:..ime of ent:.t:y and upon departure as borne no less by a certification of the Com- mission on Immigrat-ion and Deportation. (Anne�x "A", Petition). Likewise, there was no means of keeping tab with the a mo unt of foreign exchange pe�titioner presumably claimed to have brought as "no currency declaration of any kind shall be required either from outgoing or incoming passeng,er s." (CB Circular No. 270) ~ Such cir- cumst:..ance must:. have found for petitioner an 31 f.)

� DECISION - CTA CASE NO. 3201 - 6- appropriate cubby-hole within the import and sc o pe of the proviso allowing, tourist and non- resident temporary visitors the privileg1e of en try and egress with their own f oreign cur rencie�s - . sans constxaints. As i t appears however, petitioner had to labor thr o ugh a gauntlet of respondent's objection in restraint of petitioner's possession of foreign exchange on departure, requiring the� proper documen ta t.ion of own er ship and clear anc:e fr om the monetary authorities. Thi s to us is a quirk of a variance in t he application of the exceptive proviso of the regulation . \>Jere we not confronted with the said exception, the precise question raised by the r espondent Commissioner of Customs could have been easily and readily decided and disposed on the s tLength of the general limi t- ations imposed in the Circular, which, otherwise would have neatly fit petitioner's situation. But we find nothing ambig uous or obscure in the language of the said proviso insofar as the same is brought to bear upon the circumstances of petitioner. The sudden thrust of seizure and subsequent forfeiture therefore of petitioner's

�, DECISION - CTA CASE N0.3201 - 7- foreign exchange is somethinCJ of a convoluted rendition of an expedient denoueme~t that was not entirely justified. It is hardly necessary to stress that in the absence of proof to the con tr ar:y that leg,al piCe- sumption of ownership has to be accorded the possessor of t.he ~ \'Jho need not be obliged to show or p r ove it . (Sec. 5 ( j) '� Rule 131, Revised Rules of Court.; Art. 541, Civil Code) .. Respondent has not. presented any evidence of the relevance and competence required to bash that patina o f legitimacy over petitioner's just title to the involved foreign currencies. The Pasay City Fiscal's office must have struck the right chord in ruling on the same focusing question that, "To the volume of what has been testified in the case at bar, the complainant (now respondent) failed to present direct evidence to show that the currencies in question were not brought in by respondent (now petitioner) when he arrived in the Philippines. With this obtaining undisputed facts, the only reachable conclusion is that the currencies were brought by respondent when he arrived in the Philippines." (MIA Customshouse 321

. ...,. DECISION - CTA CASE NO. 3201 - 8- v. Andrulis, I . S. No. 80-44112, March 10, 1980; Annex D 11 " , Pe t.l t�' l.On ) ~ Short of uncritical leniency, we do not think that any different conclusion ought to follow. To hold otherwis.e would extruncate the salutary purpose specific- ally intended for the tourists under Central Bank Circular Nos. 270 and 534, supra. We deem unnecessary to resolve respondent's further starveling agitation of faulting peti- tioner for the alleged affiliating breaches, e.g.: petitioner ' s acts of checking in and slipping out of hot~ls a la French leave without settling hotel obligations. Certainly this sort of behavior tends to add and excite fasci- nation but it does not square the issue in the instant case. It t .akes more than these fancy inferences and slickly practices lapses to hold petitioner "a carrier of foreign exchange in the employ of a syndicate engaged in the salting of foreign exchange out of the Philippines . " One cannot simply fashion possibilities out of inconclusive ends with ambiguous means of validating, the principal cause of action. Respondent: has not been discharged from the burden of proving

.. .' ' DECISION - CTA CASE NO. 3201 - 9- the violation asserted against the petitioner on the facts of the case before us. Accordingly, we hold that petitioner has not infringed the legal restrictions in Section 3 of CB Circular No. 534, supra, much less should his foreign currencies be suffered to a delin- quency contemplated under the provision of Section 2530(f) of the Tariff and Customs Code, supra. WHERE FORE , the decision appealed from is reversed and r espondent ordered to effect the restitution of the forfeited currencies to petitioner. No pronounceme nt as to costs. SO ORDERED. Quezon City, Metro Manila, June 30, 1982. -~ iate Judge WE CONCUR: ~~,t:J. / �' AMANTE ~L~R vt/ Presiding J udge -""" CO~TANTE . ROAQUIN rssoc ia te Judge "' 32 3