While some business groups have expressed their support and minimal reservation on the appointments of military personnel and officers in the Bureau of Customs by President Rodrigo Duterte, the Chamber of Customs Brokers Inc. (CCBI) has expressed their concern of possible repercussions of their appointments.
CCBI President Ferdinand Naque said, “The BOC doesn’t only tackle prevention and suppression of smuggling. There are more responsibilities and process that they are not familiar with and this would inevitably affect the processing of documents, releasing of shipments and other related matters on the operation and regulations in the Customs.”
“It’s not that we are underestimating their capabilities. But they have to understand that more than addressing the issues of smuggling, there are also other things to do in the BOC like collection of lawful duties and taxes and trade facilitation which they are not familiar with. This might delay the transaction in the BOC”, the CCBI official said.
Given that it is a peak season of the year and the Christmas season is just two months away, a lot of importers stock up for their production and manufacturing needs.
Naque explained, “They have to understand that this season is critical to all our importers. Any delay would mean added cost to them such as storage fee and warehouse fee… There is a domino effect that would ultimately affect the consumers because whatever added cost will be passed on to the consumers.”
Meanwhile Jesus Aranza, Chairman of Federation of Philippine Industries wants to give it a try.
“He is the President, let us give it a try and if things don’t turn out that way, then we can tell him it is not good to continue”, Aranza said.
Incidentally, the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines echoed the same sentiment of CCBI on the concerns of the exporters on their need to get their goods on time given the importing peak period in November.
The Chamber Of Customs Brokers, Inc. (CCBI) is composed of Professional Customs Brokers that strengthens and protects the Customs Brokers Profession and ensures that members comply with the proper operations and regulations setforth by the BOC.
Under Article XVI Section 5 of 1987 Constitution states that, “No member of the armed forces in the active service shall, at any time, be appointed or designated in any capacity to a civilian position in the Government, including government-owned or controlled corporations or any of their subsidiaries.”
However, Presidential Spokesman Sam Panelo clarified that there was no really appointment of other military personnel. Others are going to join the BOC to make their presence felt and hopefully intimidate the crooks.
Read related article:
Business Community will watch improvement in BOC’s “militarization” https://thephilbiznews.com/2018/10/30/business-community-will-watch-improvement-in-bocs-militarization/