The Bureau of Customs (BOC) is still temporarily accepting paper or manually processed commodity clearances and permits a few days after the National Single Window (NSW) started corrective maintenance.
Charo Logarta-Lagamon, chief of BOC-Public Information and Assistance Division, said that BOC’s Management Information System and Technology Group began to fix the system last week, but that it will still accept manually processed clearances and permits while repairs are ongoing.
In a memorandum signed October 8, Customs Commissioner John Phillip Sevilla said the temporary acceptance of paper clearances is due to the “continuous degradation in the performance” of the NSW.
Verification of these paper permits will be done by customs examiners in coordination with concerned government agencies, Sevilla added.
BOC personnel, meanwhile, are directed to accept and recognize manually processed permits until maintenance work on the NSW has been fully completed.
Sevilla clarified that processing of permits through the NSW system will still continue while debugging is ongoing.
Technical glitches
Last August, BOC users were notified that the NSW was having technical problems in downloading attachments, and were asked instead to send hard copies of their attachments to the concerned agencies.
The NSW is an Internet-based system that allows parties involved in trade to lodge information and documents from a single entry point in fulfilling all their import, export, and transit-related regulatory requirements.
The NSW, through the help of integrated ICT systems, links up 40 government agencies involved in the issuance of import and export licenses, permits, and clearances as part of an effort to facilitate trade across Philippine borders.
Earlier, Sevilla said the NSW was “cumbersome and inefficient,” and that he plans to have a single IT platform created for BOC that will also have the functions of the NSW. – Roumina Pablo
Image courtesy of renjith krishnan at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
