There are about 100 to 150 importers of used vehicle parts in Cebu, most of these are engaged in multicab assembly or other four-wheel vehicles such as jeepneys.
District Collector Maria Lourdes V. Mangaoang of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) Port of Cebu said in an interview that these 150 vehicle parts importers in Cebu had already been given a moratorium by her office to secure necessary documents and permits from the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), Board of Investments (BOI), and the Bureau of Import Services (BIS).
Mangaoang said companies have different requirements or registration, based on the certain rules and regulations implemented by the government, depending on the products being brought in Cebu for vehicle assembly.
Since the BoC-Cebu conducted a seminar for this purpose on May this year, Mangaoang said only four companies are applying for accreditation.
She said she already had given these companies ample time to comply with the requirements. Effective next month, necessary actions against these companies that were not able to comply with the requirements will be implemented.
However, she did not specify what kind of action BoC will be taking into, only said that one of the options is to freeze the importation, and hold the release of LTO registration of the assembled vehicles.
In a separate interview with a top official from the cabinet post, he said that only Norkis Trading is legally allowed to import used vehicle parts in the Philippines, under the Memorandum Order 173, or the Motor Vehicle Development Program of the Philippines.
This privilege has been there for a long time in the past years, but only Norkis invested to avail of this venture, until the E.O. 173 was amended in the last couple of years through the Executive Order 346, he said.
Technically, today importation of used vehicle parts is not allowed, except for Norkis. Because these companies, which are engaged into this importation was not able to register when the M.O. 173 was still active, the source said.
This means that the booming multicab and 4-wheel vehicle assembly (using used imported vehicle parts) industry in Cebu is not legal, excluding Norkis.
According to the source, there are hundreds of these multicab assemblers that are now taking advantage of the good business opportunity for 4-wheel assembly, and have been importing used vehicle parts from other countries especially Japan, to cater the active consumer demand for low-end cars.
Norkis Trading through its chairman Norberto Quisumbing has pioneered the introduction of "multicab trend" in Cebu about 15 years ago, in its bid to provide cheaper and quality 4-wheel drive to the lower-end market.
Now, multicab has become an industry byname to an assembled vehicle using used or scrapped vehicle parts imported from other countries.
Multicab products are only manufactured and can be bought from Cebu.