Pier pressure

Surely the guys down here in my barangay (village) knew that the congestion at the piers, at the premier Port of Manila, was one major reason why, in the past several months, prices of some imported basic items went up by, at times, more than 500 percent.

But of course the Bureau of Customs, our beloved BOC, headed by the technocrat handpicked by Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima—none other than Commissioner John Phillip Sevilla—was one of the main reasons behind the port congestion.

Aside from the alarming increase in the prices of imported goods, the mess at the piers jacked up the importation costs of small and medium enterprises to the point of near death cost pressure. And we all know that SMEs were always the lifeblood of the Philippine economy.

I gathered that one small company for instance used to spend some P30,000 for import shipping, but due to the terrible jam at the piers, causing additional fees left and right, the cost recently could run upwards of P70,000 per shipment.

For one, the shipping companies would charge the importer “extra” for the delay in unloading the cargo, while the port operators, such as the one with a pretentious British-style spelling Harbour Centre, also imposed “congestion fees.”

Thus the guys down here could only wonder if some BOC top guys would get a share from such “revenue” windfall, all due to the port congestion that BOC itself caused, perhaps intentionally because of its tedious process in the release of the shipment.

Now, out of desperation, some importers would be willing to cough up, ah, some “special consideration” for the BOC boys. Still, the “tara” at the piers during the cute administration of Gloriaetta, when somebody big at the Palace had full control of the BOC racket, amounted to only P120,000 per container. Under the Aquino (Part II) administration, from what I heard, the “tara” already went up to P350,000 per container.

Take the case of imported plywood, for which the “tara”—according to our contacts experienced in dealings at the port—was only P180,000 per container, and recently started to fetch something like P500,000 per container.

Supposedly, the entire plywood shipment would have to pass through the scrutiny of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, our beloved DENR, headed by the survivalist Sec. Ramon Paje, once rumored to be up for sacking by our leader Benigno Simeon (a.k.a. BS), although Paje proved he still had the staying power.

In media, by the way, all the talk in business about inflation seemed to have been overshadowed by the hot issue called DAP, or the disbursement acceleration program, instituted by the administration, declared illegal by the Supreme Court.

For its defense, all Malacañang could say was that all the money in the DAP—all the billions upon billions of pesos—was really money well spent. Really?

The question in the first place was why did the Aquino (Part II) administration need the DAP. And based on the Palace explanation, it was because the various government offices did not have the “absorptive capacity” for their budgets.

Under our leader BS, in other words, the various offices asked for budgets that were just too high that the offices could not spend money. This, or the Aquino (Part II) administration simply could not do its job to come up with projects to spend the money.

The most prominent among the non-spending department of course was the Department of Public Works and Highway, or DPWH, headed by Secretary Rogelio Singson, which put on hold all its infrastructure projects at the start of term of our leader BS.

Anyway, the fire-fighting boys in Malacañang thus tried to cool down the DAP issue by declaring that 91 percent of the DAP was spent wisely. They forgot to say that it was a statement that still remained to be proven, because it would probably take several lifetimes to audit all the hundreds of billions pesos in the budget juggled by the Aquino (Part II) administration.

We all know that the CCT program of our leader BS had leaked more than a kitchen strainer, such as during the last elections, when Malacañang coursed the dole out through politicos. We also all know that when politicos enter the money picture, different sorts of ghoulish ghastly chilling things happen.

Anyway, back to the issue of congestion at the port in Manila, the tedious process of the BOC in releasing import shipment should only take a huge part of the blame for the mess. When the import shipment arrived, the BOC would notify the customs brokerage firms on the amount of duties and VAT, which normally would take a few days.

The BOC notice would be the signal for brokerage firms to go to the BOC assessment office, where the shipment would go through the “stop light” version of customs, getting either red, yellow or green signals. Believe me, no shipment ever got a “green” signal.

After the initial “stop light” assessment would come another assessment, this time by the IAS, or the Import Assessment Service, in which the broker would have to secure at least four signatures, if everything would go well, which would only take seven to 10 days.

Implied in the process of course was the  “special consideration” for the boys, and the amount involved would depend on the connections of the brokerage firm. From what I gathered, one of the deputy commissioners of BOC was said to own a customs brokerage firm, which could be an advantage for the importer to hire.

After all the long process of assessment of the VAT and duties, the broker then would then have to wait for four to 10 days to do the payment through banks. Everybody thought that the innovation of payment through banks would speed up things. Not!

It seemed that, ever since the BOC computerized its systems, its main server still could not handle the transactions fast enough, and it did not occur to the BOC to upgrade its server perhaps.

After the long wait on the payment line—well, just to give the government money—the BOC then would issue the “gate pass,” but it would not mean that the importer would be home free. It turned out that the cargo would have to go through the “x-ray” machine, where it would have to fall in line—a rather long line, perhaps due to all the build up of delayed releases of shipment in the past months.

Out of the piers at last, the cargo now would have to deal with the City of Manila extended truck ban, the MMDA truck ban, the MMDA number coding, the deputized agents of the Land Transportation Office, and the Land Transportation Regulatory Franchise Board, not to mention the monstrous traffic in the entire metropolis any time of the day—and night.