Sotto mulls privatization of some of BOC’s functions

Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III is mulling on pushing for the privatization of some of the functions of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) to address issues in the agency.

In a radio interview Saturday afternoon, Sotto said the BOC may be privatized as long as the company that would win the bidding could meet and remit to the government the annual target revenue from the bureau.

He said he would rather leave it to the private company to solve the issues hounding the problematic bureau, particularly with corruption.

“Sakit ng ulo ng kompanyang makakuha kung may corruption sila. Wala tayong pakialam. Basta tayo, ang gobyerno, ang tumatanggap ng exact sa gustong quota natin, at gustong binabayad sa atin na dapat kitain ng Bureau of Customs (Let the company worry about corruption in their ranks. The government would not bother. But we, the government, should receive the exact amount that we require and should be earned from the BOC),” Sotto told DWIZ.

But he said the Customs police should be placed under the control of the government to keep smuggled goods, such as illegal drugs and weapons, from entering the country.

Sotto said he believes the proposed military takeover at the BOC “might not” be the best remedy to address the longlanguishing problems in the agency.

“Hindi talaga pwedeng takeover kasi hindi naman bihasa ang mga sundalo kung paano patatakbuhin ang Bureau of Customs (Military takeover is not the best solution as soldiers are not trained on how to run the Bureau of Customs),” he said.

Sotto said, however, that he has yet to study the possible legislation for his proposal and would wait for the outcome of the performance of newlyappointed BOC Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero, a former Armed Forces of the Philippines chief.

In the meantime, he urged the government, as well as stakeholders, to look into his suggestion to solve the woes in the BOC.