BOC revenue collection target now at ₧733B

PRESIDENT Marcos Jr.’s economic team further jacked up the revenue collection target of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) for this year to P733 billion.

Customs Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero said on Tuesday that the Cabinet-level Development Budget Coordination Committee (DBCC) approved the bureau’s new full-year collection target, which is around P54 billion or 8 percent higher than their initial goal of P679.226 billion.

Despite this, Guerrero is bullish that the BOC would be able to hit the higher revenue target on the back of the improved import volume and the windfall from oil price hikes and weaker peso which meant higher costs for imports.

he added that the BOC still has surplus of around P40 billion relative to their new collection target for this year.

“Talagang kakayanin. We have shown you how our systems really contributed sa efficient collection namin and we are very confident that we will be able to hit our revenue target,” he told reporters in news briefing.

In the first half, the BOC has so far collected P396.8 billion, equivalent to more than half of the adjusted target.

To cushion the impact of rising oil prices, Finance Secretary Benjamin e. Diokno earlier said the Marcos administration will be using the windfall tax from fuel to fund and continue the fuel subsidy that was put in place by the previous government.

For this year, the government’s economic team is expecting state revenues to hit P3.3 trillion while disbursements are projected to hit P4.95 trillion.

As a result, budget deficit for this year is seen to settle at P1.65 trillion or 7.6 percent of GDP.

Meanwhile, Guerrero also told reporters that the BOC is eyeing to auction off seized smuggled rice, among other commodities, together with the Bureau of the Treasury (BTR) and the Land Bank of the Philippines (Landbank).

In a bid to generate revenues, former Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III in December last year ordered the disposal of seized smuggled luxury cars through public auction to be handled by the newly formed inter-agency auction committee composed of representatives from BOC, BTR and Landbank.

The plan to include other commodities to be disposed via the inter-agency auction is yet to be approved by Diokno, Guerrero told the Businessmirror.

“For now luxury vehicles pa lang ang in-auction jointly with Btr-landbank. Plano pa lang yung auction for all other commodities. Auction is streamed live online

using the internet to attract more bidders and for transparency and fairness,” he said in a Viber message.

Apart from this, Customs Deputy Commissioner Edward James A. Dy Buco said they still has to auction off around 20 seized luxury cars for this year, which they expect to generate an estimated P100 million.

Before the creation of the inter-agency auction committee, smuggled vehicles were destroyed instead of being auctioned off as the BOC followed President Duterte’s directive. In 2018, Duterte said he wanted to do away with the public auction of smuggled luxury cars as he alleged that smugglers take advantage of the auction to buy the vehicles at a cheaper price.

However, Customs officials assured the public that they are taking the necessary steps to ensure that smugglers do not take advantage of the seized smuggled items that were put on the auction block.