While waiting for full digitalization, which is expected to help eradicate corruption at the Bureau of Customs (BoC), Commissioner Ariel Nepomuceno is implementing a system of cooperation to curb irregularities, which the agency is notorious for.

Nepomuceno said automation is expected to be in place next year.

In terms of ease of doing business, traders have been directed to be accredited, which means importers, brokers and consignees, “so they don’t have problems every year and are exposed to possible abuses.”

He said a work in progress is a policy that BoC personnel will not be allowed to moonlight as brokers. “I will dismiss people, I will file cases. There are a lot of those,” Nepomuceno said.

Since the practice is pervasive, all personnel were told to make a manifestation in a certificate that neither they nor their relatives, now or previously, had an interest or participation in brokerage activities.

Those who admitted that they or their relatives had a business interest before will not be penalized since that’s not prohibited. Around 138 manifested they had an interest in a brokerage business out of more than 5,000 personnel.

“We will monitor them,” Nepomuceno said.

“We have an automated risk management system that we can use to see whether those brokerage firms or importers obtained “a discount or are paying a low price. We can monitor that,” he added.

The BoC chief said the disclosure is needed since failure to declare “would be fraud. Once we find out later that they lied, since the declarations are notarized, that can mean a lot of problems for them.”

“We have an enforcement group and an intelligence group. That’s one of their tasks to give me feedback and I assure the general public that once I have the information, we will act decisively,” he said.