Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III has directed Customs Commissioner Isidro Lapeña to spearhead the creation of interagency task forces at the regional level to unify and beef up anti-smuggling operations in the provinces.
Dominguez, in issuing his directive at a recent Department of Finance (DOF) executive committee meeting, said the cooperation among the Bureau of Customs (BOC) and the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) along with other relevant government agencies, should go down to the regional level to ensure that provincial operations against suspected illicit trading practices are well coordinated.
“We would like the cooperation between the BIR and the Customs to go down to the regional level. They have to be meeting regularly on the regional level, not only in the national headquarters (in Manila),” Dominguez told Lapeña.
Dominguez said he wants the BOC and BIR to strengthen their cooperation at the regional level against anti-smuggling activities, considering that most of the illicitly traded goods entering the country are being sold outside Metro Manila.
He recalled, for instance, the joint operation conducted recently by the BIR and the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) on a commercial establishment in Cabanatuan City that was found to be storing 480 master cases of illicitly traded cigarettes.
A few weeks after assuming office, Lapeña unveiled his five-point program for the BOC, which include eliminating the “tara” system, increasing revenue collections, and strengthening the government’s anti-smuggling efforts while improving the incentives and rewards systems for employees.
Lapeña said that topping his priority list is the weeding out of corruption at the BOC, which he plans to do by implementing the “no tara, no gift and no-take” policy at the bureau.
His five-point program, Lapeña said, involves the following: 1) stopping corruption, 2) increasing revenues, 3) ensuring trade facilitation 4) strengthening anti-smuggling efforts, and 5) enhancing the personnel incentives, rewards system and compensation benefits for BOC personnel.
Lapeña has also made good on his promise to implement the “one-strike” policy at the BOC, which has led to the relief of the district collectors in the Port of Manila and the Manila International Container Port (MICP) and further recommendations to likewise remove other personnel in these two offices.
He has also ordered surprise visits and inspections in Manila’s ports, which led to the arrest of an MICP security guard and two of his accomplices, who were all caught in the act of receiving money from truck drivers last September 30.
BOC officials and employees will also be subjected to lifestyle checks, Lapeña said.
To increase revenue collections, Lapeña said he will, among others, speed up the collection and forfeiture of outstanding and demandable bonds, order the collection of additional duties, taxes or penalties from post audit, immediately auction off forfeited shipments and overstaying containers, and implement the one-strike policy against officials who fail to reach their monthly collection targets due to incorrect or undervaluation of goods under their jurisdiction.
Lapeña said he also plans to do away with benchmarking, which is the practice of imposing only a discretionary value, rather than conducting the proper valuation and accurate assessment of duties, on container shipments.
He said benchmarking is one of the causes of corruption in the bureau.
