Most of Customs districts miss goals

Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon: Slump in collections INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines—For the sixth consecutive month this year, most of the 17 collection districts of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) failed to meet their revenue targets, according to some bureau personnel in charge of port collections.

But there were at least “two exceptions” in June, the Customs offices at the Clark International Airport in Pampanga and the Subic Bay Freeport in Zambales, the same sources said.

Last month, the Clark collection district, headed by lawyer Ronnie Silvestre, registered revenues of P71,839,193.58, which was P553,000 over its monthly target of P71,286,000.

For the January to June period, the Clark airport’s total collections had already reached P1,059,937,596, against its 12-month target of P885.96 million.

The Subic port has already collected P3.88 billion during the first five months of 2013, or P1.37 billion more than its 2013 target of P2.51 billion.

According to initial reports reaching the Customs bureau, the Davao and Surigao ports may have also met their June targets.

Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon has yet to release the bureau’s revenue collection report for the month of June.

But he said they were “posting a slight increase over the previous year’s figures.” From January to June 2012, BOC collections totaled over P142.6 billion.

According to Biazon, the bureau was “set back by the March collection figures (P21.09 billion, which was P6.91 billion short of the agency’s P28-billion for the 31-day period).”

“We ordered a tightening of the antismuggling campaign last March. Stricter measures were implemented to target traders who undervalue and misdeclare, making those who play the ‘cat and mouse game’ adopt a wait-and-see attitude. That could be contributing to that. Plus, of course, the usual slump in collections during the first quarter of the year,” he explained.

The January-March period is “traditionally a lean season for imports. The period comes immediately after the high demand of the Christmas season and the slowdown during the Chinese New Year,” he added.

However, the BOC “bounced back in April (with collections of nearly P26 billion),” he said.

“So we are still optimistic that at the end of the year, we’ll post a positive growth (over the bureau’s 2012 revenues of nearly P290 billion),” he said.

“With the full operation of the agency’s computerization program, we will be able to surpass, or at least meet our revenue target of P340 billion,” he said.

From January to May, the BOC took in a little more than P121.7 billion, about P13 billion short of its five-month goal of P135 billion.

The Department of Finance, of which the BOC is an attached agency, has blamed globalization, trade liberalization, sluggish international trade and the strong peso, among other factors, for the steady decline in the bureau’s revenue collections.

Biazon earlier said the evaluation of the bureau port personnel’s collection performance “will be included in the assessment of who will be moved in the next round of Customs reshuffle.”