Two vessels worth nearly P200 million are up for auction after they were forfeited by the government for tax evasion and were involved in the smuggling of illegal firearms in Mariveles, Bataan, an official said Tuesday.

In an interview, Customs Commissioner Napoleon Morales said the Bureau of Customs (BoC) will auction M/V 7,107 Islands Cruise and Panamanian-registered M/V Captain Ufuk before the end of the year.

Morales said Customs is readying the auction of the two ships as its non-traditional way to augment their cash collections for 2009 since the agency has been faced with difficulties in meeting their revenue target.

At this time, M/V Captain Ufuk is docked at South Harbor while M/V 7,107 Island Cruise is in North Harbor. Both of them are not allowed to leave the respective ports and are under guard by Customs authorities.

“We are incurring more expenses because we hired eight seafarers to man the ship (M/V Ufuk). Due to the typhoon, the Philippine Ports Authority told us to transfer the vessel away from the pier to avoid damaging the pier,” he said.

It would be recalled that the Department of Finance (DoF) ordered the forfeiture of the cruise ship for failure to pay the BoC its supposed duties and taxes worth P19 million.

The case was reportedly elevated to the Court of Tax Appeals (CTA) but the Islands Cruise filed a motion to suspend seizure and release of vessel until the motion was denied for lack of merit. On the other hand, M/V Captain UFUK was seized by BoC after it was allegedly used by an international gun running syndicate to smuggle assault rifles and pistols from Indonesia at the subport of Mariveles, Bataan last August.

Records culled from the agency showed that the Panamanian flag carrier was bought in Turkey and it gained entry in the said subport without notice, carrying the undocumented and unmanifested high-powered weapons.