Customs chief denies ‘resignation rumor’; reports higher collection in Q1

MANILA, Philippines — Bureau of Customs Commissioner John Sevilla has denied rumors claiming that he has tendered his resignation, saying that the BOC is focused on achieving its collection targets for the rest of the year.

Asked by reporters to confirm whether he has handed in a resignation letter, Sevilla bluntly answered, “No.”

“I don’t know where the rumors are coming from, but this is not the first time and this is probably not the last. It’s not coming from me, either. I know what I’m doing,” Sevilla said in a press briefing where the agency revealed that its revenue collections increased in the first quarter of 2015.

Sevilla said that he first started to hear “rumors” of his resignation as Customs chief around December 2013, but those were just that.

“It has not affected me. As you can see, we are very focused here. We cannot afford to be distracted,” he said.

But while he did not know where these rumors were coming from, he offered a motive behind it, specifically to use Customs for corruption.

“I want Customs to function fairly. I don’t want even a single peso spent for bribes, extortion or anything. It doesn’t matter whatever the purpose because it is corruption and corruption is wrong,” Sevilla said.

Sevilla pledged to do what needed to be done to make the agency more efficient in providing services.

On Monday, Sevilla reported that the BOC earned P92.2 billion in total collections for the first quarter of 2015, a 6.6 percent increase from the same period last year, but 10.7 percent below the target collections for the quarter.

Sevilla, a former undersecretary at the Department of Finance, was appointed Customs commissioner by President Aquino, replacing Ruffy Biazon when he resigned in 2013 after being named as a respondent in the port barrel scam.

Before entering government service, Sevilla was an executive director of the Goldman Sachs and associate director of Standard and Poor’s. SFM