MANILA: The Philippines is cracking down on fuel smuggling to help recover up to $300 million in lost revenue a year, money that the government has pledged to spend more efficiently ahead of the presidential election.
The customs bureau plans to revive this quarter a system to mark fuel products that have been taxed so as to identify smuggled goods, Commissioner Alberto Lina said. Separately, the government seeks to release this year P278.4 billion ($6.1 billion) of funds not spent in 2013 and 2014, Budget Secretary Florencio B. Abad said.
“We are doing whatever we can to curb smuggling,” Lina, 67, said in an interview in Manila on Tuesday. “It’s like we are in the fourth quarter of a basketball game. We’ll shoot and shoot” to get the score up, said Lina, whose term is set to end next June.
When he took office in April, Lina vowed to battle corruption and decongest Manila’s ports. Customs’s ability to maintain an improved performance and good governance poses a test for President Aquino’s efforts to institutionalize reform in the country, Moody’s Investors Service said in June.
The program to add a chemical marker to identify fuel products may cost $25 million and could result in $200 million to $300 million of additional revenue a year, Lina said. The bureau is also seeking at least 10 speedboats and 14 single-engine patrol planes to help curb smuggling along the coastline, and cooperating with the Navy and Coast Guard, he said.
The passage of a long-delayed Customs modernization bill that proposes raising salaries and simplifying procedures is also key to tackling corruption, he said.
Lina, a businessman who headed Customs briefly in 2005, said last week he expects to miss this year’s collection goal because of lower oil prices.
Philippine economic growth slowed to a three-year low in the first quarter as government spending and exports faltered. Customs collection made up about one-fifth of state revenue in 2014, with the agency meeting its goal last in 2008.
President Aquino, who steps down next year, on Wednesday proposed a P3-trillion budget for 2016, double the amount in 2010 when he took office. Interest payments will account for 13.1 percent of the budget, with defense spending rising 11.5 percent.
