Meeting Reports

Highlights of the discussion:

Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon gave an overview of his plans to clean-up the corrupt parts of the Bureau of Customs and address smuggling to protect local industries and increase BOC revenues. He explains that too many agencies (53) are involved in the process of clearing imports and exports; he insists that agencies are only allowed to issue import permits once all other documentation has been finalized. He agrees that the Single Window is urgently needed and he is studying the award given to Omniprime under the governance of BOC Commissioner Sevilla and cancelled by Commissioner Lina when he got in. If he finds the Omniprime technology acceptable, he will reinstate the award. He added that the ASEAN Single Window is on his ‘to do list’ also.

We then discussed the important implementation of the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act (CMTA). Commissioner Faeldon confirmed that the Act is effective since 16 July. The IRR should be finished by the end of the month; public consultation will take place in the coming week. Mr. Raeuber highlighted the ’transit’ provisions in the CMTA and outlined the business opportunities / income for the government if air-air / sea-air international transit of cargo is allowed in the Philippines. Faeldon took note but needs to be convinced that ’transit’ does not become another technical smuggling route.

We raised the issue of overtime charges for customs operations, allowed under the CMTA, and made reference to the success with the previous administration that all overtime charges for Customs, Immigration and Quarantine will be borne by the government. Faeldon sees this the same way.

We explained the initiatives of the Integrity Initiative to address corruption and smuggling and explained that we need government incentives to force companies to sign an Integrity Pledge and commit to clean an ethical business. Commissioner Faeldon is interested in our proposal which we promised to submit. He indicated that he is reviewing the ’super green lane’ club and how these companies succeeded to get their incentives.

We highlighted problems with the ’post-entry audit’ group and suggested that the audit procedures should be above board and fair. In this context, Commissioner Faeldon appealed to the private sector stakeholders of Customs / business groups to assist in the cleaning up process of Customs; he mentioned that he cannot do this job alone, he needs the interaction with the private sector to inform him about Customs activities / people, who are still continuing the unethical processes.

We agreed to inform importers and exporters and encourage them to assist in making Customs a respected agency.