BOC on track to meet ’10-Point Priority Programs’

THE Bureau of Customs (BOC) remains confident of meeting the expectations of the country’s financial managers with the 89 percent completion thus far of the ‘10-Point Priority Programs’ laid down by Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero for the agency last year.

Guerrero’s main targets include:

Full automation of frontline transactions; improvement of Risk Management System; Customs Modernization Program; ISO certification of Customs Offices and PGS Compliance; enhancement of trade facilitation; rationalization of penalty regime; filling-up of vacant plantilla positions;

Enhancement of management and technical skills; enhancement of stakeholder engagement; and, intensification of border protection.

The agency said that under the full automation of frontline transactions program, it has completed the upgrade and stabilization of the ‘E2M System’ and expansion of online customs payments thru the ‘PayMaya’ facilities and the online submission of documents thru the ‘Customer Care Portal System.’

For the Risk Management System, the BOC rolled out last year the ‘Universal Risk Management System’ while the ‘Selectivity System’ (the ‘color-coding’ of shipments between ‘low-risk’ and ‘high-risk’) had also been improved.

In addition, the BOC also implemented the ‘cargo targeting system’ to target specific shipments subject to actual physical inspection on suspicion of smuggling.

Both priority programs achieved an accomplishment rate of 100 percent, the BOC claimed further, while three other programs had already attained more than 90 percent completion.

The inauguration last January 18, 2021, of the ‘Customer Care Center’ (CCC) at the Manila International Container Port (MICP), also resulted to the 100 percent completion of the bureau’s CCC program for all its 17 collection districts nationwide, not including the establishment of a separate CCC for the Central Mail Exchange Center (CMEC) at the Port of NAIA.

On the other hand, the enhancement of management and technical skill program had already attained more than 93 percent accomplishment while the enhancement of trade facilitation program has been rated at more than 91 percent complete.

This involves the adoption of ‘WCO (World Customs Organization) Mercator Programme Recommendations,’ implementation of the ‘Authorized Economic Operator (AEO) Programme and, improvement of processes on ‘Advance Ruling’ (AR) and ‘Provisional Goods Declaration’ (PGD).

The BOC also noted that both the ‘rationalization of penalty regime’ and the ‘filing-up of plantilla positions’ recorded an accomplishment of 89.70 percent and 86.20 percent, respectively.

The BOC said the inauguration last year of the ‘Customs Operations Center,’ (COC), full implementation of the ‘Fuel Marking Program’ (FMP) and the strengthening of the ‘Customs Water Patrol Division’ (CWPD) to include the conduct of technical and capability trainings on water patrol operations, the Bureau recorded an 85.33 percent accomplishment rate under its

border protection program.

Meanwhile, with the ISO certification of the Sub-port of Dumaguete and the CCC at the Port of Manila, the re-certification of the Port of Batangas and progress on other offices such as the ongoing preparation of the sub-Port of Mactan, Cebu Collection District, for its own ISO-certification, all these resulted to 84 percent accomplishment of the agency’s ‘performance governance system’ (PGS) program.