Foreign shipping lines are requesting the Bureau of Customs (BOC) to do away with hard copies of sea freight manifests and implement a total electronic environment in the shipping industry when the agency revises port operations processes.
“Since we are doing the submission electronically, we have to dispense [with] the submission of hard copy. That is our number one request,” Atty. Maximino Cruz, Association of International Shipping Lines (AISL) general manager, said in a recent chance interview with PortCalls.
Cruz said foreign carriers have to submit a minimum of eight sets of documents when they call at Manila ports and more at other ports.
The AISL GM said the hard copies beat the purpose of submitting manifests electronically and are just an added cost.
Doing away with hard copies of airfreight manifests is also a clamor by other stakeholders,.
Customs Commissioner Alberto Lina earlier said one of his priorities is to automate all customs procedures. Last May 11, BOC started implementing the electronic submission of air manifests at all airports.
Atty. Agaton Teodoro Uvero, BOC Assessment and Operations Coordinating Group deputy commissioner, said BOC will be revisiting the process for submitting the sea freight manifest, possible by middle of June. One of the amendments the agency is looking at is aligning penalties for late submission of sea freight manifest with that of air freight’s.
Pragmatic port operations procedures
AISL’s Cruz also suggested the revision of Customs Memorandum Order No. 22-2010 issued by former customs commissioner Napoleon Morales.
“We strongly urge a review and visit of the Revised Port Operations Manual, CMO 22-2010, because it was issued without proper consultation from the affected stakeholders,” Cruz pointed out.
He said some of the provisions of the 2010 directive were lifted from the Port Operations Manual issued in the early ’70s and thus are now “obsolete” and “cannot pick up” with today’s practices.
Cruz suggested that BOC create a team of customs officials and affected stakeholders to update the manual and “come up with more pragmatic, competent, realistic, port operations procedures.”
Former customs commissioner John Phillip Sevilla earlier said the operations manual can easily be revised since it is only a memorandum. Early this year, BOC-Manila International Container Terminal tried to implement a provision from the 2010 manual that had never been implemented and that ordered the presence of a customs official during the stuffing of export boxes. Upon learning of concerns of stakeholders, Sevilla immediately put a stop to the directive.
Furthermore, Cruz said foreign carriers, in a meeting with Lina, also suggested the faster auction of seized and abandoned laden containers.
Containers are part of a ship’s gear, and carriers “badly need the equipment,” Cruz said, adding it is not the fault of shipping lines if containers are seized or abandoned. He said liners usually get their containers back after the cargo inside has been disposed of or auctioned. But since some containers are returned only after several months or sometimes even years, their contents may end up as garbage.
Lina said he will look into this request and make it one of his priorities, according to Cruz. – Roumina Pablo
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
