-
The control and supervision of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) X-Ray Inspection Project (XIP) has once again been returned to the Intelligence Group (IG) from the Office of the Commissioner
-
Customs commissioner Bienvenido Rubio, in Customs Memorandum Order No. 03-2023 dated February 13, realigned XIP back to IG
-
The return of XIP to IG comes barely a month since it was returned to OCOM from IG last January under CMO 01-2023
In what seems like a merry-go-round, the control and supervision of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) X-Ray Inspection Project (XIP) is once-again returned to the Intelligence Group (IG) from the Office of the Commissioner (OCOM).
The XIP is a frontline border protection unit of BOC, responsible for the detection of prohibited, restricted, misdeclared, underdeclared, and illegal imports through its non-intrusive container inspection.
Newly appointed Customs commissioner Bienvenido Rubio—citing Customs Memorandum Order (CMO) No. 03-2023 dated February 13—said supervision of the XIP is reverted to IG “to provide timely imagery intelligence, ensure the integrity of intelligence information, efficiently facilitate trade, and safeguard border security.”
As a result, direct control, and supervision of XIP will again be placed under the deputy commissioner of IG.
The order takes effect immediately.
The latest memorandum comes a few weeks after XIP command was taken by OCOM from IG as provided under CMO 01-2023, dated January 17, 2023. It was initially realigned from OCOM to the Enforcement Group in 2014, then returned to OCOM in 2017, and afterwards transferred to IG in 2018.
