Friday, July 06, 2007 Roperos: Trouble at the BOC By Godofredo M. Roperos Politics Also
ALL along I thought that everything is all right at the Bureau of Customs (BOC) since the just concluded midterm elections had put a stop or on hold previous plans of a revamp.
But according to stories in this daily the past two days, the government’s fund raising bureau was short in its collection the first couple of days this month. The reason is a slack in imports.
The slack in imports is because traders have reportedly cut down on the importation of raw materials and other commodities.
Their reason: the national government, or whoever has access to President Arroyo, has caused the setting up of an anti-smuggling group that has power to stop releases of importations once it suspects smuggling is afoot.
The Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group (PASG) has reportedly stalled processing for release of a good number of vans filled with imported commodities consigned to legitimate importers. Among these were importations of the Philippine Transmission Corp. and San Miguel Corp.
If it is true that even these two firms have been unduly affected by the PASG operation, then the reported silent protest of importers should have a strong basis in fact.
I really do not mind the President’s setting up of the PASG, for she must have a sound reason for doing it. But members of the group are representatives from the Coast Guard, National Bureau of Investigation and Philippine National Police, many of whom have no knowledge of the Tariff and Customs Code and the valuation system.
If so, the group’s actuation can be put to question. In fact, the rumor is that the PASG’s first order of business was to assess some amounts on certain BOC clientele.
“For two days, most of the importers did not file import entries. The other day, the Port of Cebu collected only P3 million, against the daily target of P18.18 million.” A day earlier, the BOC collected only P8.7 million, which is about less than 50 percent short of the target.
The report said that sometime last week the PASG held 31 container vans said to contain smuggled imports, but it was later found “to contain legitimate goods as declared in the import entry filed by Armop Trading.”
The Chamber of Customs Brokers said that the importers did not want to import because the PASG had “unreasonably held their legitimate shipments” in different ports of the country. Such a situation could mean only one thing: trouble for the government’s premier collection agency.
