BOC reforms more urgent as losses piling up

WITH losses reaching at least P295 million a day in the month of May alone, Bureau of Customs (BOC) offices nationwide are hard pressed to heed President Duterte’s order to cleanse the bureau that, at one point in the campaign, he described as one of the most corrupt agencies in government.

Nicanor Faeldon, former rebel soldier and now Customs chief, is expected to implement massive reforms in the bureau that, in a statement, he said would improve not only revenue collection but services, too.

In Cagayan de Oro, the Customs collector for Northern Mindanao had admitted that revenue collection has been hurt by problems hounding ports all over the country.

Faeldon said there are four major reforms that he wants to put in place in the BOC. “One is we have to fast track computerization,” he said in his statement.

Major crackdown

Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez, who has jurisdiction over BOC, said the bureau, for the past five months, has suffered a shortfall in revenue collection reaching P43.2 billion.

In a separate statement, Dominguez said the public can expect a major crackdown in the BOC.

Change in the BOC loomed following demands for a stop to continued smuggling particularly of agricultural products.

Earlier, the Swine Development Council (SDC) and the Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (Sinag) echoed the statement of Mr. Duterte that the smuggling of agricultural products alone has gone unabated under former BOC chief Alberto Lina’s watch.

Citing figures from the United Nations Commission on Trade, Sinag head Rosendo So said smuggling of pork alone has cost the country some P1 billion in lost revenues in 2015.

He said SDC and Sinag have provided Lina and the Department of Agriculture with names of known smugglers but these were ignored. Tina Santos with a report from Jigger Jerusalem, Inquirer Mindanao