President Benigno Aquino III INQUIRER File Photo
MANILA, Philippines—Time to reboot the Bureau of Customs (BOC).
President Aquino said on Wednesday that he pressed the “reset button” when he fired the five deputy customs commissioners last week, signaling the start of a massive reform in the notoriously graft-ridden customs bureau.
In a speech at the Brotherhood of Christian Businessmen and Professionals “Grand Breakfast” in Pasay City, he said some P200 billion in revenues were being lost every year because of “transactionalism” and patronage in the bureau.
He said the government’s response was to “reset the button for this agency that has long been the face of corruption in government.”
It was clear that merely reshuffling officials would not change anything, he said.
“We really are replacing quite a number of people in very key positions to effect the goal of having customs do what it’s supposed to do, which is to collect their appropriate duties in full and prevent smuggling, obviously,” he said.
He took pride in appointing five new deputy commissioners: Jessie Dellosa (enforcement group and officer in charge of the intelligence group); Primo B. Aguas (management information systems and technology group); Agaton Teodoro O. Uvero (assessment and operations coordinating group); Myrna Chua (internal administration group); and Finance Assistant Secretary Ma. Edita Tan (revenue collection monitoring group).
Replaced were Horacio Suansing Jr., Danilo Lim, Maria Caridad T. Manarang, Prudencio M. Reyes and Peter Manzano.
Aquino said the new appointments would “allow new blood” at the BOC, and expected the five new appointees to work with Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon to cleanse the bureau.
Last month, Aquino issued executive orders creating the Customs Policy Research Office and an Office of the Revenue Agency Modernization in the Department of Finance.
He said it was his idea to order 27 district collectors to go back to their mother unit from their “lucrative” postings in ports around the country.
When all the reforms are in place, he expects that there would be “no security guard who becomes a collecting officer, or a warehouseman as examiner,” he said.
Meanwhile, Biazon does not seem to be rattled by the perception that the massive revamp at the BOC has rendered him a mere figurehead.
“The powers of the commissioner are vested in him by the Tariff and Customs Code. And definitely, these powers are exclusive and above those of the deputy commissioners, who are expected to work in support of the commissioner,” said Biazon in a text message. He did not elaborate.