MANILA (UPDATE) — President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. on Tuesday touted the Bureau of Customs' reported revenue collection of more than P862 billion in 2022, according to a statement of the BOC.
During the BOC's 121st founding anniversary celebration, Marcos, speaking through Finance Secretary Benjamin Diokno, said the amount is 34 percent higher than the P643 billion it collected in 2021.
“I note that all your collection districts have surpassed their individual revenue targets in 2022, which enabled the bureau to exceed your annual target for the year,” he said.
Marcos also lauded the BOC's 729 apprehensions with a total estimated value of over P24 billion.
“I am thus very pleased as we recognize these and all the other achievements of the Bureau of Customs,” he said.
According to the BOC, its 2022 revenue collection is its highest in history.
BOC Commissioner Yogi Filemon Ruiz is expediting the agency's digitalization program to be able to provide transparent and efficient services while curbing corruption and increasing lawful revenue collection, its statement read.
Marcos earlier sought better data sharing among government agencies to fight smuggling and make sure that the ease of doing business is unhampered, saying bureaucracy reforms are needed.
Among the measures to address this is to delineate functions of agencies or establish new ones, Malacanang said in a statement last month.
"One of the recommendations raised was opening up the database to the Bureau of Customs (BOC) and to the Department of Agriculture (DA) to ensure the efficient sharing of information," the Palace statement read.
The current systems in place are "quite ineffective," Marcos was quoted in that statement to have said, given that paper trails have made it difficult to go after smugglers.
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