BOC orders electronic filing of air cargo manifest

THE BUREAU of Customs (BOC) will require the electronic filing of all manifests for air cargo starting May 11.

Customs Memorandum Order No. 10-2015 issued by Customs Commissioner John Phillip P. Sevilla on April 10 mandated the use of electronic inward foreign manifest

(e-IFM) as well as electronic consolidated cargo manifest (e-CCM).

The e-IFM is the electronic list of house and/or master airway bills containing information about cargo arriving on a certain flight. The e-CCM, on the other hand, contains information on cargo covered by master airway bills.

The e-CCM must be filed for every master airway bills consigned to airlines, air express operators, air freight forwarders and de-consolidators, the BOC said, noting that only house airway bills have ultimate consignees while master airway bills do not have such.

Under CMO 10-2015, airlines and air express operators must submit their flight schedules to the aircraft operations divisions of airports’ respective Customs offices at least a month in advance to facilitate e-IFM filing.

The e-IFM and e-CCM submissions must be done through the facilities of BOC-accredited value-added service providers. Airlines and air express operators are required to submit e-IFMs for each flight arrival, while submissions of e-CCMs will also be required from air freight forwarders and de-consolidators.

The cut-off time to submit e-IFMs is upon the aircraft’s arrival if the port of loading is within Asia. Outside of Asia, the cutoff time is four hours before the aircraft arrives.

Late e-IFM submission will be slapped a penalty of P10,000.

As for e-CCMs, the deadline of submission is one hour after the aircraft arrives in the case of those with e-IFMs filed on time. For those with late e-IFM filings, their respective e-CCMs will still be accepted without penalties as long as the e-CCM would be submitted within 24 hours after the e-IFM was registered.

The Customs bureau warned that all un-manifested cargo “shall be subject to forfeiture,” as mandated under Section 2530 (G) of the Tariff and Customs Code of the Philippines.