THE Bureau of Customs (BoC) launched Wednesday a tracking system for balikbayan boxes going through stages of clearance at the agency as a measure to streamline operations and reduce 鈥渟cams鈥 in their processing.
Assistant Commissioner of the Post Clearance Audit Group Vincent Philip C. Maronilla told 大象传媒 that parcels and balikbayan boxes can now be tracked through the Balikbayan Box Tracking System (PBTS), which can be accessed through the BoC website.
PBTS was launched on Wednesday.
鈥淭he system can provide updates about the parcel or balikbayan box as it goes through the different stages of customs clearance which also enables the Bureau to monitor the efficiency of BoC officials and personnel,鈥 BoC said in a statement yesterday.
Mr. Maronilla said that the users can check on the status of parcels and balikbayan boxes through their respective tracking numbers.
The shipments have time stamps to allow quick identification of delays.
鈥淭he parcels have timestamps so we can also monitor 鈥yung mga tao namin kung pinapatagal nila yung processing, bakit nagtatagal, may reason din dun (we can monitor our personnel who may be delaying processing and determine the reason behind the delay),鈥 he said.
A link directed to the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) is included in the website to provide users a way to check if the forwarding companies or consolidators are legitimate.
鈥淚t鈥檚 a very helpful tool and it鈥檚 very timely,鈥 he added.
Mr. Maronilla said the balikbayan box tracker was first launched in 2015 but the BoC had to shut it down to fix some issues and expand the system to allow it to also track parcels.
鈥淎round 2014-2015, we had a balikbayan box tracker that we launched linked up with the DTI bat nagkaroon ng problema dun sa search engine nya (but we encountered a problem with the search engine) when the forwarders stopped sending the data that we required,鈥 he said.
Separately, Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III said he will order the BoC to 鈥渁lert their counterparts in China and all the ASEAN countries to the practice of exporting untaxed cigarettes鈥 to the country.
鈥淲e are increasing vigilance against non tax-paid cigarettes from all sources,鈥 Mr. Dominguez told reporters in a mobile phone message on Wednesday.
Recently the BoC and Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) seized millions of pesos worth of tobacco products.
On Wednesday, BoC seized P95-million worth of 2,727 master cases of smuggled cigarettes in Sulu while the BIR confiscated around 145 master cases containing around 1.45 million sticks of Chinese cigarette at a warehouse in Binondo, Manila on Oct. 25.
Republic Act No. 11346 was signed in July, increasing the excise tax on tobacco products to P60 per by 2023 from the current P35. — Beatrice M. Laforga
