Breaktime: Tooth of the matter at BOC

What is all this trouble in the Bureau of Customs (supposedly the second-largest revenue-generating agency of the government) about?

The truth of the matter is, for the past two years or so that our leader Benigno Simeon (aka BS) put his complete trust and confidence in Customs Commissioner Ruzzano Rufino Biazon as BOC head, the bureau performed poorly.

Poor, or even pathetic, performance, is the foremost reason behind the issues now plaguing the BOC.

Its own people, for instance, some 13 of the 27 customs collectors that Ruzzano Rufino transferred to other positions, filed court cases against the bureau that forced the BOC and the Department of Finance to run all the way up to the Supreme Court.

Everybody knows that the BOC consistently missed its collection targets for almost five straight years now. Its collection fell short of target by almost P190 billion from 2009 to 2012. It now stares at a collection deficit of more than P50 billion this year.

By the way, Ruzzano Rufino blamed the “slowdown” in the country’s importation for the expected shortfall in the BOC collection this year. He did not talk about the massive smuggling of fuel and oil products that has been going for the longest time, which was said to account for about one-third of the total fuel supply in the country.

Thus, the Aquino (Part II) administration had to do something about the sorry collection record of the BOC. Our leader BS went for a complete revamp of the bureau, starting off with the order to transfer those 27 collectors, with 13 of them suing their own bosses over the transfer.

Look at that—with those sons of their mothers in positions of public trust as customs collectors, the BOC performed poorly in the past years, and yet they had the gall to demand to their superiors that they should keep their positions.

In the private sector, poor performance has one and only one consequence—you, my friend, are so fired!

From what I gathered, after the famous Sona of our leader BS castigating the entire BOC in public, the DOF and the BOC sat down together to thresh out some reform agenda for the bureau.

Among the initial measures were the recall of all 3,600 BOC personnel to their permanent plantilla positions (in their “mother” units), plus the transfer of 27 of the most senior and experienced BOC officials to the Customs Policy Research Office (CPRO) under the DOF.

Also, Malacañang appointed five new deputy commissioners in the BOC.

Even in full public display, up came this supposedly “internal” squabble between Ruzzano Rufino and his boss, Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima, over several appointments done by the former.

Without as much as informing his boss in the DOF, our hero Ruzzano Rufino immediately filled up the positions of those involved in the transfer, saying that the transfer could have paralyzed the daily operations of the BOC.

As we reported in this column a few weeks ago, the processing of import documents at the BOC came to a complete stop because of the revamp. With uncertainty hovering above them, BOC personnel naturally did not want to make any decision.

Still, how difficult could it be for our hero, Ruzzano Rufino, to call his boss to at least relay to Purisima his concerns over the day-to-day operations in the bureau, possibly preventing this public show of animosity between them?

The “orders” issued by our hero, Ruzzano Rufino, were known technically as CPOs, Customs Personnel Orders. From what I gathered, he already signed and released more than 80 CPOS.

Those CPOs detailed more than 600 personnel of the bureau to various positions.

You mean the BOC boss needed to shuffle more than 600 people just to keep the bureau going, performing its daily task of processing import documents?

Here is the thing: Movements of personnel in agencies under the DOF such as the BOC need the approval of the finance secretary. It is the law. Or else those CPOs issued by our, hero Ruzzano Rufino, run the risk of being nullified. They would have no tooth at all.

In an interview on television, Internal Revenue Commissioner Kim S. Jacinto-Henares (who by the way is a lawyer) had this to say: “While we appreciate the need to ensure continuity of operations and minimal disruptions at our customs ports, we must also bear in mind that we need to uphold basic protocol and procedures as laid down in the law.”

The BIR head was talking about “chain of command” in the government that must be followed even by the head of the problematic BOC. Disregard the chain and you only invite questions, perhaps even court cases, over those numerous CPOs.

And here, ladies and gentlemen, lies the trouble in the BOC: Our hero, Ruzzano Rufino, is said to have been going straight to Malacañang regarding BOC matters, bypassing his immediate superior in the DOF, a capital offense in the corporate world.

From what I gathered, both our leader, BS, and our hero, Ruzzano Rufino, did not work as employees in any private business all their lives. Our hero, Ruzzano Rufino, for instance is said to have gone straight from school as a med-tech student into the thorny world of politics. He was a member of the House of Representatives together with our leader, BS, even belonging to the same political party.

In contrast, the predecessor of our hero, Ruzzano Rufino, in the BOC, Angelito Alvarez, never had a direct line to our leader, BS. Look, Alvarez learned about his dismissal from the BOC only from the newspapers.