It takes a village to defeat smuggling
Just as it takes a “village” to raise a child (as Hillary Clinton described in her book), it also takes a “village” to defeat smuggling. Just as it is not the parents alone who can raise a child properly but the entire community, it is also not the Customs Commissioner alone who can defeat smuggling. He needs the help of relevant stakeholders.
Last Dec. 30, this concept was highlighted by Jerry Esplanada in his news report: “New Customs chief says courts partly to blame for rice smuggling.” He quoted Customs Commissioner John Sevilla, who expressed frustration over a Davao court injunction that ordered BOC to release a shipment of smuggled rice: “Our intelligence personnel are risking their lives to get information that will allow us to seize shipments, and then courts are going to issue injunctions just like that.”
Two weeks ago, I quoted the court transcription that showed the National Food Authority (NFA) lawyer, by design or by accident, neglecting to give the proper argumentation needed to stop this injunction. Here was a case where the BOC was practically deserted by a supposed government partner.
Smuggling partners
Just as it takes a village to defeat smuggling, it likewise takes several partners to allow it to succeed. When I was an Undersecretary of the Department of Agriculture, I found out that the agricultural product smuggler often needed the cooperation of both the BOC and the DA Quarantine personnel. When I replaced these DA personnel, smuggling decreased significantly. But when I left DA because of irreconcilable differences prior to the fertilizer, pork, and poultry scams, the former Quarantine personnel were recalled. Predictably, smuggling increased once more.
Due to this experience, we commend Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima for his political will in appointing a totally new BOC management team. Last Dec. 31, Zinnia De la Peña wrote: “Purisima said reforming the corruption-ridden BOC would be a challenging task, but he has high hopes that it can be done following the top-to-bottom reorganization of the Bureau.”
These hopes are getting fulfilled. Last week, we reported significant accomplishments in the last three months that were not seen in the last three years.
One of these is the seizure of 1,500 smuggled rice shipments accomplished mainly by Commissioner Sevilla and Deputy Commissioner for Intelligence Jessie Delloza. This achievement may be totally wiped out by court injunctions resulting from similar weak government lawyer argumentation.
The top officials of NFA, DA and the Department of Justice (DOJ), should ensure that the government cases presented against smuggling are strong enough to prevent these injunctions. The private sector should likewise join forces with the BOC.
Last Dec. 30, Butch del Castillo wrote: “Rice smuggling in the country has never flourished as much as it has for the past two and a half years.” He also quoted Philcongrains president Herculeano “Joji” Co: “This has been going on for almost three years, and has greatly debilitated the industry. Another year of unbridled rice smuggling will irreparably destroy the trillion-peso rice industry in the Philippines.”
Government institutions
We must strengthen our government institutions during the last three years of the Aquino administration. This way, even with a change of government officials, our institutions can continue President Noynoy Aquino’s important reforms, especially in anti-smuggling. The revenue loss to smuggling is 200 times larger than that attributed to the alleged Napoles scam. And yet, smuggling is given very little attention.
In the National Competitiveness Council (NCC) which reports to the President, there is an Anti-Smuggling and Import-Export Documentation Committee that fully supports the BOC reforms.
In this committee are officials from the relevant government stakeholders: Departments of Finance, Agriculture, Trade and Industry, and Justice. Equally important are private sector leaders from agriculture and industry, who can give good recommendations because they have first-hand knowledge of smuggling.
Though this committee has been useful, it will be much more effective if it is composed of Cabinet Secretaries and Undersecretaries. This was done in 2005 when for the first time, the import underreporting (mostly smuggling) decreased from 8 percent to 6 percent. When this group was abolished, smuggling increased systematically. According to the latest UN Trade Statistics of 2011, this rate reached an alarming 30 percent (or an annual underreported $24 billion).
We do not have to re-invent the wheel. Though the new BOC management has done a praiseworthy job so far, we are uncertain how long this will last. BOC needs other partners in a “village” to succeed, both in the short and long run. This committee, which should be re-engineered with a Cabinet Secretary leading it, will provide the effective institutional framework for the needed “village” to support the BOC in defeating smuggling.
(The author is chair of Agriwatch, former Secretary for Presidential Flagship Programs and Projects, and former Undersecretary for Agriculture, Trade and Industry. For inquiries and suggestions, e-mail [email protected] or telefax (02) 8522112).
