The Philippine Bureau of Customs (BOC) needs about P5.21 billion over three years beginning 2017 to modernize its technology environment as decreed by the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act (CMTA), according to a roadmap and master plan crafted by a former official.
The proposed budget will cover a three-year period of technology upgrading to automate frontline services and enhance administrative and technology management, according to the Technology Modernization Roadmap and Master Plan 2016.
The roadmap—created by former Management Information System and Technology Group (MISTG) deputy commissioner Dennis Reyes—serves as a systemic and holistic guide in modernizing the critical technology infrastructure and enterprise systems of BOC as mandated under Section 109 of Republic Act No. 10863 or the CMTA. It also envisions the progressive move of the bureau toward an efficient and paperless customs environment from 2017 to 2019.
Automation, the roadmap noted, will have to cut through the frontline, administrative, and technology management dimensions of BOC’s operations, as it will serve as “the foundation of a faceless, cashless, and paperless environment.”
Proposed projects
The roadmap has outlined a budget planning process and methodology, and categorized projects into 11 expense categories to standardize costs.
One of the projects involves acquiring and implementing the requisite tools and technologies to migrate all internet accessible systems of the bureau into a unified enterprise portal.
Another is the Enterprise Customs Operations System-Processing and Regulatory Management. This project, to be implemented over a three-year period, envisions replacing the existing electronic-to-mobile system (E2M) with a standards-compliant, cloud-native enterprise system.
The third is the enhancement of the Advance Manifest Submission System, which is a system that will enable shipping lines and value-added service providers to submit the manifests of all inbound shipments 24 hours after departure from the port of origin.
The fund also covers the BOC’s integration into the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Single Window, a project that the Philippines has agreed to pilot test this year.
There is also allocation for an e-payment system at BOC.
According to the roadmap, manual processes and inefficient technologies are actually affecting BOC’s operations and revenue collections.
It adds that previous attempts to modernize the bureau’s technology environment were constrained by policy and operating realities that hampered efficiency and continuity.
Past choices of technology projects, it continues, were largely based on what could be implemented within the incumbent leadership’s term of appointment.
Thus, the projects revolved around “immediate wins” that delivered solutions that “eventually became today’s sources of problems—low hanging fruits which in hindsight compounded to already existing problems while failing to address the core problem areas that work against achieving operational efficiency.”
Further, the roadmap identifies inefficiencies brought about by the lack of proper technologies and plans needed to improve the current systems of BOC.
For one, based on the 2015 revenue performance report, BOC racked up a deficit of P68 billion against its P436 billion revenue collection target, the roadmap notes.
“The factors that contributed to this deficit are multi-faceted. In general, this deficit could be attributed to operational inefficiencies due in large part to the high levels of manual and repetitive work involved in delivering its services, and the absence of requisite software-enabled environments to reduce its dependence on human intervention,” the roadmap states.
It says a high-level operational scan of both frontline and administrative operations clearly shows that while most offices are equipped with networked and stand-alone desktop computers, these computers are used primarily for encoding, word processing, email, printing, and browsing the internet.
“Process automation does not currently exist in the Bureau of Customs,” the roadmap points out.
BOC’s frontline port operations exclusively use desktop computers for the electronic-to-mobile (e2m) system and NSW access and use. But the lodging of entries, while it employs computers to transmit entries, is still a heavily manual process requiring a high level of human intervention.
Lack of security, transparency
There is also the absence of software systems to help the Intelligence and Enforcement Groups of BOC maintain clear custody of evidence, and enable the real-time automated storage, analysis, and distribution of files or documents.
While these units currently use software to track alerts, alerts remain dependent on human intervention.
“If this were a software-enabled process, an alert system would be triggered when a condition, rule, or process is violated without the need to have personnel or officers intervene to generate the alert,” the roadmap says.
Although the bureau has installed rudimentary CCTV equipment, many have resolutions in the 1 megapixel range, giving each an effective resolution range of not more than 10 feet. As in most monitoring activities, designated personnel still have to man the console to monitor security-related activities.
The revenue, collections, and legal operations of the bureau suffer from a similar disadvantage, the roadmap observes.
Cashiering functions continue to support both e-banking and manual, over-the-counter (OTC) payment. The bureau uses electronic facilities for payment, but the system is by no means automated since there are no automated systems to audit and reconcile payments with banks on demand.
“Transparency between what was alleged to have been paid and what was actually paid, as well as the capability to granulize payment particulars on demand do not exist. While these reports could eventually be generated, the generation of such reports take time to manually produce,” the roadmap states.
Legal services, meanwhile, also stand to immediately benefit from automation of case management, electronic document routing, and the use of digital signatures, according to the roadmap. The paper adds that software-enabled systems will serve to institute efficiency, transparency, accountability, and traceability in legal proceedings, which are still done manually in their entirety.
Even BOC’s MISTG service and system monitoring are still dependent on manual functions, whereby technical staff still have to open several interfaces to monitor various equipment and network performance. Personnel then record details onto a spreadsheet—tools to automate these processes and functions exist but are not properly configured.
With so much time spent by MISTG staff on supporting e2m and NSW, the roadmap notes that other technology management and policy development functions have had to take a backseat, “leaving the technology environment, that is critical to the delivery of services, without a single policy or standards document or even a system of documented and auditable procedures that parameterizes tasks.”
Aside from internal factors, the roadmap also notes that some environmental drivers have significantly changed, imposing added pressure on the operational environment of BOC as a whole.
These external drivers “include those related to advancements in technology, increasing levels of globalization, maturing as well as increasing frequency in the number of free trade agreements, increased volume of trade, emergence of new industries, international and regional geo-political conditions, and the increase in the sophistication levels and capabilities of criminal entities.” – Roumina Pablo
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