Philippine customs brokers will not be out of the job once the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act (CMTA) is signed into law, assures an official of the Bureau of Customs (BOC).
“Contrary to the position of Customs Brokers and National Students Organizations of the Phils. (CBaNSOP) that the customs broker profession will die once the CMTA is passed, we believe that it will not,” Atty. Agaton Teodoro Uvero, Deputy Commissioner Assessment and Operations Coordinating Group, said in a statement.
“The customs importation process is a very technical process and an importer will always require the expertise and advisory service of customs brokers to properly transact with the BOC,” Uvero said.
On July 20, about 500 Customs Administration students and representatives of customs brokers’ organizations staged a mass action at the BOC premises in protest of CMTA’s declarant provision that allows any authorized company officer, who need not be a customs broker, to be the goods declarant.
The group also plans to stage a protest action at the Senate grounds, but a definite date has yet to be set.
In the BOC’s draft proposal sent to the Congress Technical Working Group on CMTA, Uvero said, “We recommended that if allowed, only licensed customs brokers may represent importers with customs and that customs brokers will jointly sign the import entry together with the importer who will be the declarant.”
For sole proprietorships, the importer will sign as the declarant, while partnership and corporations will have to assign a responsible officer to sign as the declarant.
Both the importer—as declarant—and the licensed customs broker—as a licensed professional—will sign and have the responsibility to declare importations correctly, Uvero noted.
“If they violate customs laws, then both of them will be liable,” he pointed out.
Uvero noted that since it is Congress that has authority to draft the CMTA, “we will only implement whatever provisions are approved and passed as law.”
In an interview with media, Uvero said Customs Commissioner Alberto Lina supports “the need for customs brokers to continue.”
Uvero, however, clarified that under the Revised Kyoto Convention (RKC), which the country is a signatory to, the declarant is “somebody who has the right to dispose of the goods, meaning the owner (of the goods).” He said BOC has been consistent in its position that the importer should always sign the import entry so BOC can run after shipment owners who violate customs rules and regulations.
At the CMTA hearings, he said, the private sector has been pushing to make customs brokerage services optional because under the RKC, “persons concerned shall have the choice of transacting business with Customs either directly or by designating a third party to act on their behalf.”
The RKC, which was implemented in 2006, is the blueprint for realizing trade facilitation and applying effective controls, mainly through its legal provisions that provide in detail the application of simple yet efficient customs procedures. The revised RKC also contains new and obligatory rules for its application which all contracting parties must accept without reservation.
The current practice in the Philippines under Republic Act No. 9853, or the amended Customs Brokers Act of 2004, is for both the customs broker and the representative of the importer to sign the import entry.
Uvero said if Congress approves the proposal to make optional the signature of customs brokers on the import entry, then Congress will also have to amend the current laws. – Roumina Pablo
Image courtesy of graur razvan ionut at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
