BOC eyes 25% collection hike

MANILA, Philippines - The Bureau of Customs (BOC), the government’s second largest revenue generating agency, expects collections to grow at an average of no more than 25 percent this year as it steps up monitoring and examination of goods entering the country.

In BOC’s  meeting with stakeholders Tuesday, Customs commissioner John Philip Sevilla vowed to fight corruption and initiate much-needed reforms to shed the agency’s tainted image.

Customs collections grew 26 percent in the first quarter to P86.5 billion due to an increased volume of imported goods and a slight increase in the number of working days.

“The 26 percent growth is not sustainable over the long-term, we see annual collection growth rate to be in the low 20s,” Sevilla said.

Nevertheless, Sevilla said the agency remains committed to adopting reforms to further improve BOC’s operations and curb smuggling in the country.

The BOC aims to go completely paperless by June 2015 to take advantage of the opportunities offered by digital technology.

Sevilla said digital document management is possibly more powerful and cost effective and could help stop smuggling in the country.

“When everything is digital, there would be less scope for construction,” Sevilla said.

Sevilla admitted that smuggling remains prevalent in the country as 82 percent of inbound shipments are underdeclared or smuggled.

“There is no guarantee of success for us. Assuming we succeed with these changes, there is no guarantee that these will stay forever but I think the ultimate thing that would make it difficult to go back to the bad habits [is that] we have a system we will be leaving behind,” he said.

Sevilla said the government loses around P85,000 per container from underdeclared cases.