Biazon confident BoC will meet collection target for 2012

Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon. INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon has noted a “significant improvement” in the agency’s revenue collection for the month of October as he also expressed confidence they would be able to bring the bureau’s collection shortfall to a manageable level, if not meet its collection target for 2012.

Biazon pointed out over the weekend that “the BOC’s total revenues of P26.07 billion for October this year was 17.4 percent higher than its P22 billion collections for the same month in 2011.”

In a statement, he acknowledged that “the total collection for October was still short of our target for the same month (P29 billion).”

However, he said “it was a 90.5 percentage point improvement as the October collection shortfall was narrowed down to only 9.5 percent compared to the preceding month’s shortfall of 23.4 percent.”

During the past 10 months, the BOC’s collection deficit has widened to about P40 billion.

According to Biazon, “there are several contributing factors to the improvement in the BOC’s collection performance in October.”

“First, October is usually the month when importations start to peak as traders beef up their stocks for the holidays. Second, the leadership change jitters and the period of uncertainty that prevailed when news about my leaving the bureau to run for a Senate seat in the coming midterm elections is over,” among others, he said.

Citing a “stable leadership and a more defined road map to recovery already in place,” the BOC head expressed confidence they would be able to bring the bureau’s collection shortfall to a manageable level, if not meet the BOC’s collection target of P347.07 billion this year.

This year’s revenue goal is 31 percent higher than the previous year’s target.

“In comparison, the Bureau of Internal Revenue’s collection target for 2012 is only 15.8 percent higher than its actual collections in 2011,” said Biazon.

But he said, “we have recovered quite well and we hope to sustain this recovery. We will also push vigorously for the attainment of our yearend collection target even if we feel that the target given us is really stiff and sort of unrealistically high, considering the volatility of the global market in 2012.”

Earlier, Baizon told the INQUIRER that unlike his predecessor’s “negative year-on-year revenue collection growth,” the bureau has witnessed positive growth during the past 14 months.

However, he said they “still need to do better to achieve a consistent upward trajectory.”

“Our growth this year, although positive, has been a roller coaster ride between double and single digit growth,” he said in a text message.

From January to October, BOC collections totaled over P240.5 billion, about P23 billion more than the revenues recorded during the same period last year.

“So while we have missed the target, it’s really because it was high to begin with,” he said.

Biazon lamented the finance department-attached agency was “made to look bad every time we missed our monthly target although we were able to surpass our actual collection figures year on year.”

He said it was “about time to review the targets,” stressing they “need to adjust how we look at our performance.”

For 2013, the interagency Development Budget Coordination Committee has set a BOC collection goal of P397 billion, up P50 billion over this year’s target.