Cebu Port Exceeds 2014 Target

The Port of Cebu district collection office exceeded its assigned annual revenue collection for 2014.

As against its 2013 collection the 2014 performance increased by P2.8 billion, netting a collection of P13, 079.685 billion. In 2013 it only got P10, 214.441 billion hence registering an increase of 28.05 percent. The annual target on the other hand is P12, 497. 199 billion which was surpassed by at least half a billion pesos.

Gen. (Ret.) Roberto Almadin expressed elation for the performance vowing to do more this year saying that what happened in 2014 was a collective effort of the men and women of the port, the stake holders and his “consultative strategy” where he values suggestions from groups and individuals which he saw fit for their system.

Almadin is among those who were plucked out of retirement from the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) in October 2013 by the Department of Finance to join the Bureau of Customs through the Office of the Revenue Agency Modernization (ORAM).

Almadin believed he got adherence when he emphasized to the stakeholders and to his men upon his assumption that the procedures which he has applied was all for what is good for the government.

“You let them understand that I am doing this not to fill in my pocket and I got adherence on that,” Almadin told MetroCebu News in an interview.

Almadin emphasized that what mattered was reducing corruption in the workplace and he did it by strengthening some procedures which was not applied effectively in the past.

“We strengthened procedures on existing procedures that were not properly implemented, then everything just follow, it came naturally and by that although I can not brag about eliminating corruption but what I can brag is that I was about to reduce that dramatically…. For instance, if you can not serve eight hours as required by law is already corruption, there are better way on how to do things and we did that.”

Asked on how to best address the corruption problem, he said, among others, full computerization and automation will, a project of Commissioner John Sevilla which he is fully supporting.

Almadin explained less human intervention in the processing of import entries is the antidote of smuggling which he said is the main source of corruption.

“Fast track the grey areas, make clear and concise procedure. Then computerization, when we will be able to computerize customs, there will be lesser human intervention, we will be successful then in our anti corruption campaign, of course smuggling is number one, predominant factor why people commit those things because of those incentive from smuggling,” Almadin said.

For his part, assessment chief Conrado Abarintos revealed, among the procedures, which has been effective is the compliance of stakeholders specifically the importers and brokers on Customs Memorandum Order (CMO no. 28-2007) where goods are declared specifically in the import entry documents.

He said, the goods then are declared in tariff terms thus prompting customs examiners and appraisers to come up with proper classification and thus proper valuation of the goods.

The valuation of the goods are the basis on the computation for the payment of customs duties and taxes of an imported commodity.

“The compliance of the stakeholders did it and with the overall guidance and leadership of Collector Almadin, the port became very successful. Everybody really contributed to this, Abarintos told MCN for his part.

According to Almadin, the Fiscal Intelligence Unit of the Department of Finance noted an increase of twenty base points in the tax base for the Port of Cebu.

The Port of Cebu collection district comprises of the main port which holds offices at the Cebu customs house at the Cebu International Port and the Subports of Mactan where the Mactan Cebu International Airport sits and Subport of Dumaguete in Negros Oriental.

The Subports of Mactan and Dumaguete were noted to have not incurred not even a single last month last year that has a shortfall in its assigned collection target.

Subport of Mactan is led by Acting Collector Gerardo Campo while Acting Collector Fe Toring is heading the Subport of Dumaguete.