MANILA — Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III has met with newly-appointed Bureau of Customs (BOC) Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero to discuss ways to achieve the agency’s revenue goals and at the same time address corruption.
In a message to reporters, Dominguez confirmed he met with Guerrero Wednesday afternoon to tackle “the way forward to implement the President’s wishes.”
He said they also talked about the “urgent need to completely eliminate corruption and smuggling particularly illegal drugs, the trade facilitation function of BOC, and the target of collecting an average of PHP55 billion per month in 2019.”
The new BOC chief “is up for the challenge”, Dominguez said.
“I am fully confident in his ability to deliver on all fronts. The DOF (Department of Finance) team will provide our utmost support,” he added.
BOC is among the agencies under the Finance Department.
Guerrero, former head of the Maritime Industry Authority, succeeded former Commissioner Isidro Lapeña, who was appointed as chief of the Technical Education and Skills Development Authority.
BOC has been tasked to collect PHP598 billion this 2018.
Lapeña, during the turn-over ceremony at BOC Wednesday, said preliminary data show that the agency’s collections as of end-October this year reached around PHP481.72 billion, accounting for about 80 percent of the full-year goal.
He noted that the agency registered its record-high daily collections last June 14 after posting revenues amounting PHP4.03 billion, while highest monthly collections were hit last May at PHP52.74 billion. (Joann Villanueva/PNA)
