Yogi the ‘Pogi’

Make no mistake about it. The latest addition to the Daily Tribune family as a columnist does not necessarily come from the anthropomorphic family of Hanna Barbera's bears, nor is named after the New York Yankees' baseball catcher who won 10 World Series titles.

But Yogi Filemon Ruiz, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr.'s new Commissioner at the Bureau of Customs would jokingly admit his Yogi was a misspelled version of Pogi which his parents gave him along with his Lolo's name Filemon when he was born.

The new man at the helm of one of the most corrupt government agencies, however, seems unperturbed by his new calling as Commissioner. In fact, his calling card says it all: YOGI FILEMON RUIZ, Public Servant.

How does he want to make a difference, knowing most of his predecessors seemingly have tried but failed to contain the corruption in the agency?

"Ï won't say they were failures. They have laid the groundwork for the present Bureau of Customs. We'll just have to go where the frontline is, look at the situation and take it from there," Yogi said during his stint at the Daily Tribune's 'Straight Talk' program last Tuesday.

While the country's educational system is slowly reverting to face-to-face classes, the BoC, for its part, is now on the final leg of minimizing customer interaction with BoC employees.

Digitalization, for the Cebuano commissioner, is key in minimizing face-to-face transactions that are often blamed for most of the corruption in the bureau.

"We are on the final leg of our digitalization program," he said. "It's a big step in tracking down all the transactions at the bureau."

Yogi, a former Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency official, knows that as soon as he has implemented his anti-smuggling and anti-corruption plans to the letter, he will be the most hated man at the BoC. But he doesn't mind.

For him, he is just implementing his mandate from the President which is to modernize and streamline the BoC operations and make it at par with other world-class customs agencies.

So far, since January this year, the BoC, he said, has issued show cause orders resulting in the investigation of 492 customs personnel, filed nine administrative cases before the BoC Legal service, reprimanded six employees, relieved 35, suspended nine and reshuffled 374.

Currently, as part of its zero-contact policy, 91 percent of Customs processes are already automated. Since taking over retired military general Leonardo Guerrero, the new commissioner has created Customer Care centers in 17 collection districts which serve as one-stop shops for customs-related transactions.

Also, since the start of the year, the BoC posted a total collection of about 776.304 billion which is 86 percent or P122.002 billion over the target for the period. Compared with the P575.604 billion collections for the same period last year, revenue collection, Yogi said, increased by P200.701 billion or 34.9 percent.

We could go on and on citing Yogi's work at the Bureau, but his Straight Talk interview revealed more of the man who never applied for the job but was nevertheless appointed by President Marcos after presenting his anti-smuggling plans in Malacañang.

He admitted having been once an overseas Filipino worker in Japan, exactly the reason why his heart bleeds for all the migrant workers.

Under his watch, the BoC has distributed 4,516 balikbayan boxes to various consignees after being abandoned by freight forwarders for lack of customs duties and taxes.

"I really feel for the OFW.s Those balikbayan boxes represent the happiness of families during this holiday season and it pains me that they will not be able to receive them. So we tried our best to send them to recipients free of charge," he said.

With the reforms he is initiating at the bureau, we're pretty sure, the new Customs chief would indeed be a hated man at his own agency.

But never mind. He will still be Yogi the to most of our migrant workers hereabouts.

e-mail: mannyangeles27@gmail.com