THE Supreme Court (SC) has dismissed a petition of the Chamber of Customs Brokers, Inc.’s (CCBI) seeking to declare as unconstitutional a provision in Republic Act 9853 or the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act.
In a 13-page decision promulgated on February 20, 2023 but only made public last September 5, the High Court’s Second Division upheld the ruling issued by the Court of Appeals which affirmed the resolution issued by the Manila Regional Trial Court on April 5, 2019 junking due to lack of merit the petition for declaratory relief filed by CCBI.
To recall, Congress enacted Republic Act 9280 or the Customs Brokers Act of 2004 which regulated the profession of customs brokers.
Under Section 27 of the said law, import and export declarations shall be signed only by customs brokers.
In 2009, RA 9853 was passed, amending Section 27 of RA 9820 such that import declarations shall now be signed by both a customs broker and the consignee/owner/importer, while export declarations are to be signed by the exporter or, at his option, a customs broker or authorized representative.
Section 106 (d) of RA 9853 stated that “a declarant may be a consignee or a person who has the right to dispose of the goods.”
The declarant shall lodge a goods declaration with the Bureau and may be a person duly empowered to act as agent or attorney-in-fact for each holder.
Meanwhile, Section 107 of the said law also states that the declarant “shall sign the goods declaration, even when assisted by a licensed customs broker, who shall likewise sign the goods declaration.”
This prompted the CCBI, a national organization of customs brokers recognized by the Professional Regulation Commission (PRC), to file a petition for declaratory relief before the Manila RTC, pleading, among others, that Section 27 of RA 9280 remain in full effect despite the passage of Section 106 (d) of RA 10863 (An Act Modernizing the Customs and Tariff Administration), or that the latter be struck down as unconstitutional for being in violation of the equal protection clause of the 1987 Constitution.
The respondent Bureau of Customs (BOC), through the Office of the Solicitor General (OSG), however, insisted that Section 27 of RA 9280 has been modified by Section 106 in relation to Section l07 of RA 10863.
Thus, the OSG argued the new law authorized the importer, exporter, as well as their appointed agent or attorney-in-fact, to lodge a goods declaration independently and without the participation of a customs broker.
Likewise, the OSG stressed that even before the passage of RA 10863, Section 27 of RA 9280 had already been amended by Section 1 of RA 9853.
In denying the CBCI’s plea, the High Court held that the equal protection guaranty under the Constitution means that “no person or class of persons shall be deprived of the same protection of laws which is enjoyed by other persons or other classes in the same place and in like circumstances.”
It said such guaranty “does not demand absolute equality,” rather it merely requires that persons under similar circumstances be treated alike.
The High Court’s ruling penned by Associate Justice Antonio Kho Jr. added that the equal protection clause “was not intended to prohibit the legislature from enacting statutes that either tend to create specific classes of persons or objects or tend to affect only these specific classes of persons or objects.”
“A law is not invalid because of inequality. The very idea of classification is that of inequality, so that it goes without saying that the mere fact of inequality in no manner determines the matter of constitutionality,” the SC explained.
All that is required, the SC pointed out, is that the classification must be reasonable, specifically that the classification should be based on substantial distinctions which make for real differences, the classification must be germane to the purpose of the law, the classification must not be limited to existing conditions only, and the classification must apply equally to each member of the class.
It added that jurisprudence has developed three tests of judicial scrutiny in assessing the reasonableness of classifications, namely the strict scrutiny test, the intermediate scrutiny test, and the rational basis test.
“In light of the foregoing, the Court rules that RA 10863 does not violate petitioner’s CCBI’s right to the equal protection of the laws,” it added.
Furthermore, the SC agreed with the OSG that Section 27 of RA 9280 had already been repealed by RA 9853.
“The latter explicitly states that the export declaration shall be signed by the exporter or, at their option, delegate the signing and processing of the document to their designated customs broker or authorized representative,” the SC stressed.
