Customs OIC to serve only for 2 months

MANILA, Philippines - John Phillip Sevilla will serve as officer-in-charge of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) for only two months.

Speaking to reporters, Sevilla yesterday said he will only be at the BOC until January to help handle operations during the Christmas holidays.

“(President Aquino) said that ‘I want you to be OIC for two months’,” he said.

Sevilla doubts that the BOC would be able to meet its collection target for this year.

However, he had promised President Aquino that he would do his best with the task given to him, he added.

Sevilla said he does not know why Aquino chose him to be BOC OIC.

“Whether I am here for two months, one month or 10 days, my work style would not change,” he said.

Sevilla said he would not be able to complete the reforms at the BOC during his two-month stint.

He would only continue the job that former commissioner Rufino Biazon had left, he added.

Sevilla said he could not give a timetable as to when the reforms would be completed.

“To reform Customs is not a series of big ideas... Reform in the BOC requires a long list of very unglamorous optional details that need to be thought of very carefully... That is why I could not identify the sequencing or if in 30 days it would be completed,” he said.

“Customs reform would not succeed based on a big picture, not based on an overall program. It will succeed on details, on lots of small things on execution.”

Sevilla said he could not give a direct answer if there would be more movements of personnel at the BOC.

“Anytime there is a reform program, let us accept the fact that reforms are disruptive because we are making changes in the system,” he said.

“My obligation and the obligation of the Department of Finance is to keep the disruption to a minimum... People would have to adjust.”

Different levels of reforms are happening at the BOC: in  personnel; the process from the time goods enter the country, cleared and post audited; and policies that would require legislation, he added.

Sevilla said they would work toward meeting the daily P1.4-billion collection target for the month of December during his brief two-month stay at the BOC.

Based on figures that he saw, including collections for Dec. 1 and Dec. 2, the BOC would have a hard time arriving at the P340 billion for 2013 or even the lower P300-billion target set by Biazon, he added.

Sevilla said the possibility for the BOC to meet even the P300 billion was dim. “We have been behind target all year,” he said.

“So to expect that we would be able to catch up on the shortfall (that was accumulated during an 11-month period) and most of the imported goods already came in last November, it is not realistic that we would be able to catch up. The target for the remaining days of December is P28 billion, I want us to be closer to P28 billion than zero.”

Sevilla left his post as finance undersecretary for corporate affairs and privatization to be caretaker of the BOC.

Smuggling of used cars

The BOC will look into reports of rampant smuggling of used cars in violation of a Supreme Court (SC) order.

Sevilla said yesterday they will find out how these cars are able to enter the country even if they have incomplete documents.

“How much taxes should we have collected from these importations?” he asked.

“I have been told that it (used car smuggling) is still rampant and car smuggling has high visibility.”

They would need better intelligence information to get to the bottom of the car smuggling, Sevilla said.

Ariel Nepomuceno, the new Customs deputy commissioner for enforcement, said he knows about the Department of Finance order to curb the smuggling of used motor vehicles, although  he only joined the bureau five days ago.

“The data could be accessed by the public, especially the media, on our website for transparency and to intensify better coordination between the bureau and the public,” he said.

He asked that he be given two weeks to formulate a strategy on how to deal with the problem.

Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said despite the SC decision that affirms the validity of Executive Order 156  banning the importation of used vehicles, some ports are still receiving them.