Government-owned and controlled corporation Phividec Industrial Authority (PIA) has provided the Bureau of Customs (BOC) 1.5 hectares of land at the Mindanao Container Terminal (MCT) for the construction of a new administration building and a new designated examination area (DEA) for the revenue-generating agency.
Customs Commissioner Isidro Lapeña, in an interview on June 11, said BOC had requested 5,000 square meters of land from PIA for a new customs house for the sub-port of MCT in Tagaloan, Misamis Oriental. He said PIA granted the request, and added another one hectare so BOC could also put up a DEA. He noted that the area can accommodate three or more x-ray machines.
On June 6, PIA and BOC signed a usufruct agreement and held a groundbreaking ceremony for the new building.
Lapeña said he has already requested the budget for the proposed building and hopes it is approved this year so construction can start next year.
MCT, a sub-port of Cagayan de Oro port, is located inside the Phividec Industrial Estate (PIE), which is under the jurisdiction of PIA.
The customs chief said PIA provided the area so BOC “can perform its mandate efficiently” as the industrial zone authority expects “there will be an increase in economic activities” in MCT in the coming years. BOC personnel will transfer to the sub-port building from the port of Cagayan de Oro once it is finished.
Lapeña agrees on the transfer of customs personnel to MCT, noting that the sub-port is “producing much more revenues that the port of Cagayan de Oro.”
Asked if, with a new DEA within MCT, stakeholders at the port will no longer have to go outside the terminal for examination as it is done under the current setup, Lapeña said yes.
“It will be a better set up,” he added.
Stakeholders at MCT have been requesting BOC for years to transfer the DEA/customs clearance (CCA) area to inside MCT.
PIEMO (PIE-Misamis Oriental) Industries Association, Inc. (PIA), a group of locators and service providers doing business at the Misamis Oriental economic zone, wrote Lapeña last December requesting for the return of the x-ray inspection of containers to the MCT area so as to avoid additional charges.
This request, they added, was also in support of increasing trade and economic activity in Northern Mindanao.
According to PIA, “MCT port is handicapped due to additional charges borne by the shippers.”
The x-ray inspection of containers is currently carried out in a privately operated DEA/CCA located outside the terminal.
“Every time a cargo is brought to the CCA/DEA area, additional charges are imposed. These additional charges do not go to the government treasury and instead [are] collected by the private operator,” PIA through its president Augustus Adis pointed out.
Terminal users have clamored for the return of the DEA/CCA within MCT premises for years now, claiming irregularities in the DEA/CCA after it was placed outside the container yard during former customs chief Rozzano Rufino Biazon’s term.
The DEA is covered by an agreement, signed by the BOC and the private operator Golden Sun Cargo Examination Services Corp., the original copy of which could reportedly not be traced.
Lapeña is the fourth customs commissioner asked by PIA to return inspection inside MCT premises.
Since 2014, PIA had been asking succeeding customs commissioners to intervene. Former commissioners John Phillip Sevilla, Alberto Lina, and Nicanor Faeldon all agreed to PIA’s request and issued orders to return the DEA/CCA inside MCT, but Golden Sun still continues to operate outside the terminal.
PIA earlier noted that under Executive Order No. 592, signed 2006 and establishing the non-intrusive container inspection system, x-ray inspections should be confined inside the port area.
MCT is the lone Philippine port with a different examination arrangement, which PIA, in its 2015 letter to Lina, claimed made DEA/CCA “prone to corruption.” A similar setting established in another Mindanao terminal did not last long.
PIA said the additional charges imposed on importers under this setup consist of hustling, lift-on/lift-off, stuffing, stripping, and parking fees. Exporters, on the other hand, pay extra parking fee per container. There are also fees for security warehousing, open space, and forklift rentals.
Moreover, PIA said these charges are higher than the P2,290.50 levied by the Philippine Ports Authority-Mindanao for the same services.
When x-ray inspections used to be conducted inside the MCT port, shippers did not have to pay these excess charges, PIA said.
The DEA/CCA location was transferred outside the MCT grounds in 2013 through Customs Memorandum Orders 18-96A and 17-2008.
“Even with minimal movement, for as long as the cargo is within CCA premises, the charges are the same,” PIA had said in its letter to Lina. – Roumina Pablo
