The Bureau of Customs (BOC) has activated an “orange lane,” a new color lane in addition to the red, yellow, and green lanes under its selectivity system, to further strengthen the agency’s risk management capability.
Customs Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero in a memo dated September 15 directed the establishment of the orange lane under the BOC’s Universal Risk Management System (URMS). The lane is to be implemented via the Electronic-to-Mobile (e2m) System.
In a statement, BOC said the new lane has been activated “to maximize non-intrusive inspection for an enhance trade facilitation while ensuring strengthened border protection and revenue collection.”
The orange lane will be assigned to medium- to high-risk cargoes. Goods declaration tagged orange will have to pass through x-ray scanning. Once the image is found to be suspicious, the goods will be subjected to physical examination.
Meanwhile, the “red lane” covers high-risk cargoes, which are subject to x-ray scanning and physical examination.
The “yellow lane” is for cargoes which have low to medium risk and are subject to document check.
The “green lane” is dedicated to cargoes which have no to low risk and do not require documentary review or inspection.
BOC also has “super green lane,” a special facility where accredited members, consisting of multinational companies and members of the top 1000 corporations, are accorded the privilege of advance processing and clearance of shipments.
BOC’s selectivity system refers to the use of risk-based color channeling to manage risks and allow the agency to “allocate its scarce resources to the high-risk areas while increasing the efficiency of the clearance process for low-risk shipments.”
Last June, the agency introduced the URMS to improve its risk management capabilities. BOC plans to migrate information to URMS, which has a more user-friendly interface, allows a larger amount of information to be stored, and promotes a paperless system.
READ: BOC adopts new risk management system
The URMS has been initially implemented at all ports and is expected to provide the Risk Management Office (RMO), which oversees BOC’s selectivity system, with a quicker means of tagging shipments.
RMO said selection under the URMS is analytics-based through a memory-based reasoning (MBR) feature that “enables risk and compliance prediction” as an artificial intelligence tool so as to promote automation and lessen human intervention in assisting traders.
RMO has been working to secure the pipeline of information and feedback mechanism through “maximization of its data sources using modernized systems and upholding a viable structure of setting and updating Selectivity Screens in the thrust to sustain effective machine learning.”
To further improve the URMS, the Customs Risk Management Steering Committee continues to develop action plans encompassing all the areas in the delivery of an enhanced risk management system of the agency, BOC said.
Relatedly, BOC also issued Customs Memorandum Order (CMO) No. 21-2020, which took effect on September 1. The memorandum order covers operational procedures of BOC’s RMO for data gathering and analysis, risk assessment, profiling and targeting, updating of the selectivity criteria and parameters, and monitoring and evaluation of the results.
READ: BOC issues procedures for improved cargo selectivity system
It also covers the roles of other concerned offices and/or collection districts nationwide in improving the risk management process and selectivity system.
Anti-trade facilitation?
Chamber of Customs Brokers, Inc. president Adones Carmona, in a message to PortCalls, said he disagrees with the new policy as it was issued without prior public consultation and “runs counter to smooth trade facilitation.”
“I believe they are doing this to accommodate the numerous complaints with the unexpected examination of IU (inspection unit) and this somehow provide early information that your shipment will be subject to IU with red lane,” Carmona opined.
Carmona said prior to the new policy, red lane shipments did not undergo physical inspection unless a suspicious image was discovered during x-ray examination. Now, under the new policy, the previous red lane has become the orange lane.
He said with this, it will now be “impossible to release on the same day red lane shipments” and will cause demurrage and storage charges.
Asked what BOC could do instead of adding a new lane, Carmona suggested strengthening “intelligence network and risk management” and “not just (conduct a) purely fishing expedition.” – Roumina Pablo
