Ineffective anti-smuggling efforts

SMUGGLING is still rampant in the country and one estimate says that the government loses as much as P320 billion a year in foregone revenue due to smuggling. One reason why smuggling continues to flourish is the piecemeal approach to fighting smugglers.

But Customs Commissioner Rufino Biazon is to be commended for trying to stamp out smuggling. He has instituted reforms, such as trying to give the Department of Agriculture access to the BOC’s Inward Foreign Manifest (IFM).

But Biazon cannot fight smuggling alone. He needs and deserves the help of others to succeed.

Inward foreign manifest

The IFM is a document that lists the imported product, source country, the ship it will arrive in, and date of arrival. The Bureau of Customs gets this two days before the imported product arrives. Today, only BOC has this list.

If the DA also has a copy of IFM, it can compare this with its own list of import permits. Automatically, all those without permits are smuggled. The suspects can therefore be apprehended and the goods confiscated upon arrival.

But a year and 10 months had already passed since Biazon ordered the BOC to turn over the IFM. The Customs bureau still has yet to comply. The DA personnel tasked to get the IFM personally told me that the software the BOC had given them was too cumbersome, and the six computers needed to process the software had not been provided. Thus, smuggled products continue to flood the market.

Sure, smuggled shipments are caught occasionally and we commend the BOC for acting on some of the Alyansa Agrikultura reports on smuggled shipments.  But while apprehending smuggled shipments based on reports is good, this constitutes a very small portion of the total smuggled volume. This piecemeal approach should be supplemented with a systems orientation for it to be truly effective.

Committee against smuggling

According to Jesus Arranza of the Federation of Philippine Industries, the only time smuggling was effectively minimized was when there was still a Cabinet Oversight Committee Against Smuggling (COCAS). Its members were the heads of Finance, Agriculture, Trade and Industry and Justice. Its chair was the late Angelo Reyes of the Department of Interior and Local Government. Two private representatives were also included: One from Alyansa Agrikultura and the other from the Federation of Philippine Industries.

With this high-powered body, the BOC had no choice but to respond appropriately on a biweekly basis. We believe the COCAS was abolished because it had caught a “big fish” through its transparent mechanisms.

We believe some unscrupulous BOC officials sabotaged Biazon’s praiseworthy efforts.

Smuggling will stop if a COCAS-like body is formed immediately.

Under this administration which supports Public-Private Partnership (PPP), it will be even more effective. It can be made an integral part of the successful Cabinet Cluster on economic matters, and should take on the same high priority as fighting jueteng.

It is time we supplement the ineffective piecemeal anti-smuggling effort with a systems approach using a Public-Private Partnership Oversight Committee Against Smuggling (PPP-OCAS) that will put an end to today’s smuggling scourge.

(The author is chair of Agriwatch, former Secretary of 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).