I always declare items as, 'Gifts, Balakbayan'. I tend to have more problems with items being sent Fedex into Europe from the Philippines. My boss forwarded me an invoice from our import agent in France who deals with all our incoming mail, and we were billed a 200 euro clearance charge for a letter from Marvie sent via Fedex, thankfully they didn't make me pay but was asked for it not to happen again. The annoying thing is that fedex would have cleared the item anyway, and if it was sent to my home I would never have been charged that fee.
The Philippines isn't too bad for imports, just a bit of hassle on occasions. I'm in Egypt at the moment and spent about 2 days a week just dealing with declaration and import/export issues for spare parts and sorting out crew visas! Absolute nightmare!
