MANILA: Philippines Bureau of Custom (BOC) collected P739.33 million representing proceeds from auctions of seized shipments of mostly smuggled rice in 2014 and also set new policies to meet the target in 2015.
At a news conference late last month, Customs Commissioner John Phillip P. Sevilla reviewed the Bureau of Custom’s (BOC) performance in 2014, noting, in particular, that the agency made “major headway” in reducing smuggling in the country.
He said the BOC was able to stop rice smuggling two months ago, but, “unfortunately,” the practice has resumed, although not in the usual ways or places. He noted the “record amounts” of seized smuggled rice, rice auctions, as well as cases filed against some customs officials involved in seizing smuggled rice
Sevilla said the agency has, likewise, reduced significant amounts of smuggling in fuel, backed by increasing volumes of imports in crude oil, diesel and gasoline by 17 percent, 25 percent, and 10 percent, respectively, compared with the volume in 2013.
“These are abnormally high rates of growth,” Sevilla noted, adding that “there are amounts of fuel that were being smuggled in the past, which are now coming in through legal channels.”
Another indicator of reduced smuggling, Sevilla said, is that the undervaluation of resins, a “hot item” until recently, has stopped. “On the technical smuggling side, I think we have successfully ended the undervaluation of resins,” he pointed out.
To prove this, he said the volume of imported resins increased 23 percent this year, while collections from resin imports surged 78 percent.
On another note, Sevilla listed his “three biggest disappointments” in 2014.
One was that the hiring of new personnel was not as fast as he had wanted. Sevilla said this was because they were careful about hiring and taking the right approach rather than opting to lower standards “to rush things.”
In July this year the BOC started the first phase of hiring recruits for over 1,000 vacant positions to “provide a faster and better standard of service” to stakeholders.
Another disappointment, Sevilla said, was the delay in resolving administrative cases filed against erring customs officials, who “we believe have made mistakes and should be terminated.” In July the BOC filed 80 formal complaints, of which more than 40 were dismissed, while close to 25 to 30 cases have yet to be resolved.
The last disappointment, Sevilla said, was that the BOC was “not able to do much in terms of improving the processing efficiency of import transactions.”
He admitted that public dealings with the BOC were harder in 2014 than in previous years because of the new policy on accreditation that was issued early this year.
The BOC’s mother agency, the Department of Finance, in February changed the accreditation process for importers and customs brokers into a two-tiered process.
