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THE
Philippines will apparently miss the deadline for
accession to the new international convention
standardizing customs procedures, which includes a
general annex of measures necessary for modern customs
administration.
This was
reported by Customs deputy commissioner Reynaldo
Nicolas. He said the deadline for the Revised Kyoto
Convention is in June at the World Customs Organization
conference.
He said
they are “constantly negotiating” with the Senate
committee headed by Sen. Miriam Defensor-Santiago to
accelerate the hearings so that even if the June
deadline is not met, the country could sign the treaty
at least within the year.
The
Philippines would then have three years to bring into
force the standards required by the treaty and five
years for the transitory standards.
“We are
also fast-tracking the review of the modernization bill
of the BOC [Bureau of Customs] that will play a vital
role in the proper implementation of the [convention],”
added Nicolas.
The
country’s accession to the convention is only part of a
long process of changing its customs system. Since the
Philippines is not a signatory to the older version of
the convention, the current system has a lot of catching
up to do to be on a par with the new procedures in the
treaty.
For
starters, Congress will have to change the country’s
Tariff and Customs Code after ratification of the
convention, otherwise known as the International
Convention on the Simplification and Harmonization of
Customs Procedures.
The
draft implementing bill, which they hope to file after
President Arroyo steps down in 2010, will contain the
country’s new tariff and customs-modernization act and
should be aligned with the provisions of the treaty and
other legal standards and world’s best practices.
This
means, if the country accepts the treaty, the BOC and
other government agencies would have to change their
current procedures on all shipments in order to follow
some 120 binding provisions of convention.
Such
include, among others, new rules on duties and taxes,
customs control, the use of information technology, risk
management, audit techniques, prearrival processing,
transparency of customs regulations, and the partnership
approach between customs and trade.
The
tariff code is already 30 years old and was last revised
during the Marcos dictatorship. |
