House minority bloc wants Biazon fired as BOC chief

Bureau of Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon: A warning. INQUIRER.net FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines — The House minority bloc wants the government to get rid of Customs chief Rufino Biazon for his agency’s alleged inability to reach its target collection.

In a press conference on Wednesday, House minority leader Danilo Suarez lambasted the Bureau of Customs’ “poor collection efforts” and urged the government to take note of the Attrition Law in dealing with Biazon and the agency’s other officials.

“Iyung benchmark ng attritable shortfall ay sigurado ako na ang Customs is attritable. Kapag ang shortfall mo ay seven percent, you should voluntarily resign or face attrition including your deputies,” he said.

(I’m very sure that the benchmark of attritable shortfall has been reached by the Customs. If the shortfall is seven percent…)

“Ang sinasabi nga natin dito nagsisisihan sila sinasabi nilang papaano ko ma-aattain itong target eh napakataas eh di huwag mo na sanang tinanggap in the first place,” Suarez said.

(What we’re saying here is that they are blaming each other and complaining how they will attain a target that is so high. In that case he should have not accepted the post in the first place.)

The minority bloc said that it was the second straight year under the BOC’s present administration that it has been unable to meet its target collections. It said that the agency missed its P320 billion target in 2011 as well as its P347.07 billion target.

Other issues which up to now remain unresolved are the 200 container vans which went missing almost a year ago, the lawmakers said.

To them, the issues should be sufficient grounds for Biazon to resign or be fired from his position.