Customs disputes leaked report on falling collection

INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

MANILA, Philippines–The figures didn’t jibe and the data was still being reviewed.

This was the response of the Bureau of Customs’ Public Information and Assistance Division (PIAD) to a published report on declining collections at the agency prepared by the newly created Customs Policy Research Office (CPRO), better known as the “freezer” where erring bureau personnel were transferred.

The report disputed the BOC’s claim of increased revenue collections in the first five months of the year. It was dated July 1 and marked confidential, and was addressed to Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima.

BOC spokesperson Charo Logarta-Lagamon in a phone interview on Tuesday said that “the figures in the report don’t jibe” as she also noted that the revenue collection data for the January to May period were “still being reviewed.”

“The figures have yet to be finalized,” Lagamon told the Inquirer.

She also said the report was prepared by “only four” of the more than one dozen customs district collectors who were transferred to the CPRO after it was created late last year.

“It’s not a majority report,” Lagamon said, noting that it had yet to reach Purisima.

Lagamon said the report was submitted to Finance Undersecretary Carlo Carag, chief of the DOF’s Revenue Operations and Legal Affairs Group and undersecretary in charge of the CPRO.

She also wondered how some media entities, including the Inquirer, were able to get hold of the report even before Carag and Purisima.

Apparently, she said, the people behind its distribution had “other intentions.”

In the confidential report to Purisima, the CPRO said there had been a decline in bureau collections, “considering all the growth factors (tariff and foreign exchange rates and import values) versus the actual percentage growth from January to May 2014 compared to the same period in 2013.”

“Notwithstanding the reported increase in the average tariff rates, foreign exchange rates and values considered as growth factors during the period, the growth in the bureau’s collections has been on a steady decline since January, with a negative growth of -14.38 percent declining further to 116 percent in May,” the report said.

It said that “imports in the first quarter of 2014 totaled $16.6 billion, a 12-percent increase from the $14.43 billion recorded during the comparable period last year.”

“Noticeable from the data obtained from the bureau’s statistical division is the 36.3-percent increase in the volume of imports classified as nondutifiable for January to Mary 2014 compared to the same period in 2013 while the volume of imports assessed as dutifiable or taxable decreased by 4.5 percent,” the report said.

It added: “Further study or analysis should be conducted on this data to determine the glaring discrepancy in the volume of dutifiable imports vis-a-vis nondutifiable imports.”

Last week, the Inquirer reported that for the sixth consecutive month this year, the BOC failed to meet its revenue target with June collections of only P26.96 billion.

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