“The man has been in his post for just about six weeks and it definitely is still too early to judge his performance and that of the fledgling Aquino administration. ”
by Ducky Paredes
Customs Commissioners have come and gone but the culture and stench of corruption has been the mark of the BOC through the years.
We have had honest commissioners but even they had no lasting effect on the culture of corruption that seems to prevail at the BOC I remember that when he held this post, even the flamboyant and colorful Cesar Climaco, the fighting mayor of Zamboanga City for whom honesty was a lifelong virtue, found that battling the entrenched syndicates in and out of the Aduana was frustrating.
An avowed nemesis of corruption, Climaco was appointed Customs Commissioner by then President Diosdado Macapagal. After a few months on the job, Climaco chose to resign rather than yield to the demands of some high officials of the government for preferential treatment of their imports of luxury vehicles and other goods.
Now the eyes of the business community and of a highly skeptical public are trained on Commissioner Angelito Alvarez, the new chief of this highly sensitive moneymaking instrumentality of the government. The man has been in his post for just about six weeks and it definitely is still too early to judge his performance and that of the fledgling Aquino administration. In fact, if one wants an indication of how P’Noy will do, it may be Lito Alvarez who will show the way. His success will also be that of Noynoy.
One wonders, though, if Lito realizes the enormity of the tasks confronting him.
The BOC was supposed to have made a listing of big-time smugglers that Lito gave to the President. Hopefully, the listing included a big time smuggler who, from wild talk in smuggling circles, has allegedly been lording it over the agency for many years now, doling out hundreds of millions of pesos to his contacts and highly placed protectors. This big man’s operation has spanned several administrations and is still going strong. The smuggled items are supposedly disposed off through large retail outlets that this big time operator has set up all over Metro Manila.
Can Lito Alvarez take down this smuggling giant?
Going for Lito Alvarez is the intensity, single-mindedness and dedication that Alvarez brings to the job.
His directive limiting to four officials the authority to issue hold and alert orders for suspicious shipments, for instance, should contribute significantly to the fight against corruption and smuggling. The four officials are the Commissioner himself, the district collector for the major ports, the deputy commissioner for the Intelligence Group, and the deputy commissioner for the Enforcement Group.
Aside from reducing red tape, the directive should drastically cut opportunities for extortion, and relieve importers from harassment to which corrupt Customs personnel subject them. Harassment is particularly rampant in cases where such shipments are critical to the economy, like agricultural products and raw materials urgently needed by the manufacturing sector.
The BOC chief’s order should help expedite the release of cargo that will ultimately result in trade facilitation. This should also make it easier to pinpoint responsibility in cases where smuggled goods and illegal shipments are discovered.
Significantly, Alvarez appears to have earned the trust and cooperation of an important sector of the business community. The Federation of Philippine Industries (FPI) notes that Alvarez adopted some of its proposals concerning smuggling. These included the publication of updated reference values, the release to concerned agencies of an incoming ship’s inward foreign manifest, and the compulsory acquisition by the government of imported goods found to be grossly undervalued.
In a statement, the FPI said it has established a better working relationship with the new Customs boss and that the group now sees an improvement in terms of determination and sincerity to fight smuggling. “By and large, the FPI is satisfied with the sincerity of the new Commissioner and FPI will give him our full support,” the statement said.
The FPI has some other proposals that Alvarez may find worthy of his consideration. Among this is the hiring of third party auditing firms to assist the agency’s Post-Entry Audit Group (PEAG). Because of its limited personnel, the PEAG can only audit three percent of all importations.
Actually, one major reason behind the PEAG’s inability to audit a larger volume of imports is the non-cooperation of the Management Information Systems and Technology Group (MISTG) under Deputy Commissioner Alexander Arevalo. This unit maintains and controls the Automated Customs Operating Systems (ACOS), which contains all of the agency’s electronic files on import transactions. The PEAG staff complains that it takes Arevalo up to six months just to respond to official requests for data.
Under this situation, how indeed, can the PEAG conduct more audits on the importations? And why is Arevalo so stingy in sharing data controlled by his office? Considering that the PEAG itself is under the Office of the Commissioner, must Alvarez have to take the step of compelling Arevalo to extend his cooperation?
Alvarez has also ordered the revival of the policy of giving informers a reward equal to 20 percent of the value of smuggled goods or the amount recovered from tax evaders. This policy has already reaped results after the agency was tipped off about an anomalous importation of P300 million worth of rice by two trading firms.
An informant provided Alvarez with documents on the illicit transactions and the modus operandi employed by the two firms. This enabled the BOC to file the charges in one just week, Alvarez said. The accused are officials and incorporators of Plum Blossom Import-Export Food Corporation and Full Story Source Marketing.
The BOC also filed smuggling charges against two businessmen and eight Customs brokers involved in illegally bringing in P300 million worth of household appliances, office equipment, agricultural products from China. The two businessmen were purportedly the owners or proprietors of the Gold Mind Trading and Quick Flo Trading.
Instead of a building, the supposed business office of the two companies turned out to be a small, clapboard house at the NDC Compound in Sta. Mesa. The smuggling activities were said to have cheated the government of duties and taxes running into the billions of pesos.
Alvarez has also correctly pledged no drastic revamp in his agency. Short of giving everyone a clean slate, he is for giving the Customs personnel three months to show positive results in their respective jobs. In effect, the Commissioner is telling his people that in the meantime, and unless proven otherwise, he will let the cloud of suspicion drift away but that they should behave and perform as expected.
However, he said that there will be a lifestyle check among BOC officials and personnel. The aim is to remove the corrupt and to weed out the non-performers and those who cannot meet their assigned collection targets within a specified period.
Alvarez recognizes that cleaning up the mess in his agency cannot be done overnight. Give me three years, he pleads. It will take time to even just profile the critical industries, he explains, particularly as it concerns the documentation of the supply chain on such items as oil, rice, and steel.
That should be understandable and Alvarez is just being realistic. This is really a tedious task that involves the identification of the importers, the Customs brokers and auditors and the means by which their imports enter the market and where these items go.
The bottom line is that there should be measurable results within the time frame he has set, both in curbing smuggling and in the fight against graft. If Lito Alvarez can show that he can clean up at the BOC, he would have proven that Noynoy and his crew have a fair chance of cleaning up government.
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hvp 08.12.10
One Comment
The new head of BOC is a welcome change for everybody especially the consumers because knowing Mr. Alvarez he will surely protect the interest of the majority by imposing low tariff rates and strict policies which concerns management. if just given a chance I would be willing to work under his stint to be a witness in handling the bureau.
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