Bulldozers and backhoes pounded over two dozen seized luxury cars and trucks in the Philippines on Tuesday, consisting of Porsches, Mercedes, Jaguars and Corvettes, in a remarkable demolition presenting the no-nonsense leader’s crackdown on criminal offense and corruption.
President Rodrigo Duterte observed as the pre-owned vehicles, some valued as high as $115,000, were reduced to piles of scrap in a little over 3 minutes.
“Give it to the purchaser of steel,” Duterte stated, recalling his instruction to officials.
“They can not have cars like that. However they can get something, make toys out of it.”
The Bureau of Custom seized $2.93 million worth of smuggled vehicles in 2017, part of the $866 million in seized items, federal government information revealed.
“It does not pay to evade taxes in the Philippines so may also stop attempting, due to the fact that you will never be successful,” Duterte’s finance minister, Carlos Dominguez, informed reporters before letting diggers loose on 20 slick-looking automobiles at a Manila port. A more 10 were at the same time destroyed in ports in the southern cities of Davao and Cebu.
The government in 2017 destroyed more than $2.5 million worth of cigarettes bearing fake tax stamps.
Duterte, noted for his bloody war on drugs and contempt for criminals, has guaranteed to introduce a “golden age of infrastructure” over six years, worth $180 billion. He has released a comprehensive tax reform program to help fund it.
