(Photo/Office of the Press Secretary)
By Katrina Gracia Consebido
President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. wants bureaucratic reform to fight smuggling, reduce logistics costs, and to make sure that there’s ease of doing business in the country to boost investments and business activity.
According to Malacañang, Marcos noted in a meeting with the Private Sector Advisory Council (PSAC) the ineffectiveness of the current systems against smuggling.
“To be brutally frank about it, we have a system but they are not working. Then smuggling here in this country is absolutely rampant,” he said.
“So it does not matter to me how many systems we have in place, they do not work,” he added.
Marcos also mentioned the need for another way as the country cannot rely on ineffective systems.
“So we really have to find something else. We cannot continue to depend on these systems which have already proven themselves to be quite ineffective,” he said.
He said the cost to the state and private businesses of the issue is too high for it to be ignored, with the business sector complaining about the inefficiency in airports and seaports.
The opening of the database to the Bureau of Customs and the Department of Agriculture was suggested to improve information sharing. Marcos likewise urged government agencies to be more innovative. -ag
