BOC needs 1 more deputy commissioner
Almost three months after Commissioner Isidro Lapeña was appointed to the Bureau of Customs (BOC), only one deputy commissioner position remains vacant to complete his “BOC DepCom Team.”
This was after President Duterte recently appointed former BOC DepCom for Enforcement Group (EG) Ariel Nepomuceno as the new DepCom for Post Clearance Audit Group (PCAG), while DepCom Teddy Sandy Raval was transferred from the Intelligence Group (IG) to the EG.
The other members of new BOC team are DepComs Ricardo Quinto for IG, Gladys Rosales (Internal Administration Group), Edward James Dy Buco (Assessment and Operations Coordinating Group) and retired general Natalio Ecarma III (Revenue Collection and Monitoring Group).
Both Quinto and Rosales were with the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency before they were recruited by Lapeña to join him at the BOC, while Ecarma came to the BOC during the time of former commissioner Nicanor Faeldon.
With six of the seven DepCom positions already occupied, the President now only has to fill up the vacancy for the BOC’s Management Information System and Technology Group which was last occupied by former Army captain Gerardo Gambala, who was once part of the Magdalo Group.
Last Aug. 30, Nepomuceno tendered his courtesy resignation, but Duterte gave him another DepCom post in the bureau.
Nepomuceno is the only DepCom who was appointed by the administration of former president Benigno Aquino III and was retained by the Duterte administration.
Nepomuceno has been with the BOC since 2013 and served since the time of former Customs Commissioner John Sevilla.
He will assume his new position in the BOC as head of the PCAG (formerly called Post Entry Audit Group) once he takes his oath either before Lapeña or Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III.
“The expectations from the BOC are high. We must do everything to meet the revenue targets and stop the reported anomalies in the agency. Gen. Isidro Lapeña is confident about achieving these twin objectives. We will help him. I’m personally committed to assist him. He is on the right track,” Nepomuceno told The STAR.
The PEAG was previously under the Department of Finance but some two months ago, an Executive Order was issued returning the PEAG/PCAG to the BOC in compliance with the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act.
At the PCAG, Nepomuceno said his office would be tasked to check shipments that had passed through the BOC for the last three years.
“Its main function is to audit or double check all the transactions undertaken by the BOC as far as payment of correct duties and taxes is concerned,” he added.
In the BOC, for purposes of trade facilitation, there are instances when selected shipments are released with minimal scrutiny, but through the PCAG, the government can run after those who failed to give accurate payments of duties and taxes.