The Philippine Bureau of Customs (BOC) has assembled a technical working group (TWG) to work on reviving a 2013 suggestion to create a one-stop shop where alert orders will be issued or lifted, according to an agency executive.
Intelligence Group (IG) deputy commissioner Jessie Dellosa told PortCalls in text messages that a TWG has been formed to discuss the establishment of the one-stop shop, which will be BOC’s command center for the issuance of alert orders.
Dellosa in 2013 suggested a “war room” where all alert orders will emanate. Under BOC rules, the customs commissioner and his deputies and deputy collectors are allowed to issue and lift alert orders. In 2014, then customs commissioner John Philip Sevilla issued Customs Memorandum Order (CMO) No. 21-2014, which provided new procedures for issuing and lifting alert orders on entries formally filed in its electronic-to-mobile system.
Another CMO, 35-2015, expanded the authority to issue alert orders to the assessment and operations deputy commissioner, but decrees that lift such orders may only be done by district collectors and the customs commissioner.
READ: BOC introduces key changes to issuance, lifting of alert orders
Customs Commissioner Nicanor Faeldon, in an earlier report, said a new memorandum implementing the opening of the command center by August 1 will be issued. He said the center will have representatives from trade-regulating agencies coming together to discuss any issues over an importation; two-thirds of the group must vote to put out a warning for the shipment before an alert order can be issued.
Dellosa said the command center is being created for “transparency purposes.”
The center, he added, will also have representatives from different BOC offices and “will serve as a coordinative body and special adviser to the commissioner.”
Among provisions of the new Customs Modernization and Tariff Act is the simplified issuance and lifting of alert orders. – Roumina Pablo
Image courtesy of David Castillo Dominici at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
