Conclusion
CAN the country survive without a Bureau of Customs (BoC)?
Politicians now wrestle with this probability as a panel on the House of Representatives has recommended on October 3 the dissolution of the BOC into two agencies. The panel proposed the BoC be broken down into the Bureau of Customs Service (BCS) and the Bureau of Security Control (BSC).
The recommendations are contained in the 82-page report submitted by the House Ways and Means Committee after the investigation on the P6.4-billion shabu smuggling.
“Of course, if ever that recommendation will be considered, it should be considered as a last resort,” newly
appointed Customs Commissioner Isidro S. Lapeña said. “Because I am optimistic that we can do the reforms, the transformation of the BOC, that will make the BOC meet the expectation of the people in its mandate.”
According to the House committee, the government lost P43.8 billion in revenues from July 2016 to July 2017 due to corruption, incompetence of the bureau and manipulation of the system.
Preparatory acts
HOUSE Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Dakila Carlo E. Cua pointed out that a national emergency may be considered when the BOC, which is considered to be the country’s first line of defense, has been compromised because of the bureau’s corruption and incompetence in protecting and securing the country’s borders from the entry of illegal drugs.
“Well, it’s true, there are a lot of things that have to be done in the BOC, and I have started doing the preparatory efforts that have to be done,” Cua said. “We have a problem of corruption that is the tara system. And the marching orders of the President to me, before my assumption, were to stop corruption and improve revenue collection.”
The House panel recommends the BCS be placed under the Department of Finance, while the BSC is placed under the Department of Interior and Local Government. The committee also recommended the two new bureaus only hire highly qualified, competent and experienced personnel with proven integrity.
“And so, in conformity with that marching order, during my assumption, I gave the guidance to stop the tara, ‘no take no gift no pasalubong’ policy,” he said. “And I have also mentioned to stop the benchmarking, and instead it should be based on correct valuation.”
Lifestyle checks
ACCORDING to Lapeña, BOC officials and employees will also be subjected to lifestyle checks.
He also called for the full implementation of the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act (CMTA), to relocate bureau offices and improve the bureau’s infrastructures and facilities to ensure transparency, consider expanding the coverage of the port-load survey to containerized cargoes, review the process of accreditation to eliminate the use of consignees-for-hire and revisit the Attrition Act of 2005.
“We are also doing other activities to further improve revenue collections, such as trade facilitation, to ensure that contraband goods do not enter the Philippines, just like the shabu,” Lapeña added.
According to Natalio C. Ecarma III, deputy commissioner for the bureau’s Revenue Collection Monitoring Group, the BOC has also implemented measures to cut red tape in the bureau, including the fast-tracking of the issuance of the CMTA’s implementing rules and regulations (IRR) while ensuring a fair playing field for all BOC stakeholders.
Other measures Ecarma cited is the full automation of systems to reduce face-to-face transactions, revising the rules for the accreditation of importers and licensed brokers, modifying the BoC green lane, submitting daily an updated list of newly accredited importers, trimming to three to five working days the approval of accreditation of importers and inspection of alerted shipments to be done within 48 hours, among others.
Better collection
ACCORDING to Ecarma, the new set of BoC officials plan “to curb corruption the soonest.”
“BoC officials and employees should not thrive on the practice of tara, bribery and red tape,” Ecarma said. “All these practices must be swept from BoC culture.”
Meanwhile, the BOC reported that it posted more than P3 billion in collections for two consecutive days based on the Financial Service’s preliminary collection report, a first in the agency’s history.
According to Lapeña, the BOC collected on September 28 and 29 a total of P3.316 billion and P3.193 billion, respectively. The 3-billion figure is the first in the collection performance history of the bureau, the country’s second-largest revenue-generating agency.
According to data from the BOC, it has also achieved a total cash collection of P39.545 billion for September, regarded as the highest cash collection achieved for a month.
The customs chief bared the improvement of the collection performance is attributed to the 20.92-percent increase in valuation compared to last year of the same period. The bureau was able to collect duties and taxes for September based on the total dutiable value of imports amounting to P420 million compared to the assessed dutiable value of P347
million of the same month in 2016, despite the higher percentage of nondutiable of 84.5 percent, from the 81.2 percent in 2016.
September figures also indicate a year-on-year increase of 14.71 percent in terms of volume of imports. In September last year, there was a total of 8,504,422 kilograms of imports, while current volume posted 9,755,082 kg.
Still optimistic
THE Tax Expenditure Fund is the revenue collected from government importations and are not paid in actual cash by the agencies but instead credited by the BoC from the budget of agencies.
Preliminary collection report showed that, despite the three nonworking
holidays in September, the BOC achieved 96 percent of the total collection, collecting P40.150 billion against the monthly target of P41.753 billion based on Budget of Expenditures and Sources of Financing (BESF) target.
It was previously reported that the BoC needs to achieve the monthly target of P50.1 billion from September to December in order to hit the full-year BESF target of P467.896 billion.
“We hope to hit our target. We were given a target of P50.1 billion per month up to December,” Lapeña said. “I am optimistic that we will be hitting our target [this October].”
With such figures, the newly appointed customs chief believes the correct valuation is now working, and he is determined to implement such method in the coming months.
Image credits: Nonie Reyes