Customs Commissioner Leonardo Rey Guerrero directed all district collectors to submit a recovery plan following the bureau’s failure to meet its assigned collection target for the months of October and November, dimming the possibility of hitting the P584.881-billion 2018 revenue collection target.
BOC records showed that for the month of October, the bureau was only able to collect P56.392 billion as against its target of P56.586 billion or a deficit of 0.3 percent or P195 million.
For the month of November, total collection was only P50.387 billion versus target of P56.873 billion, down by 11.4 percent or P6.486 billion.
The bureau’s collection performance slowed down after President Rodrigo Duterte named Guerrero in place of former Customs commissioner Isidro Lapeña who was embroiled in the P11 billion smuggled shabu reportedly hidden inside magnetic lifters which slipped past the bureau and was found emptied of their content in a warehouse in Cavite.
Guerrero implemented several measures to rid the bureau of alleged corruption, including detailing military personnel at the BOC and restricting legitimate brokers and importers movements inside the bureau, which led to the agency’s failure to meet its collection target.
Many considered October and November as the highest months for revenue collection because of the volume of imports that come during the holiday season.
In a memorandum dated and signed on Dec. 11, Guerrero directed all district collectors to submit a collection deficit recovery plan “with concrete and deliverable measures, to help ensure that the bureau will meet the assigned target for 2018.”
The directive was issued due to the low collection performance for the months of October and November.
During the term of Lapena, the BOC exceeded its revenue collection targets for eight straight months from February to September 2018.