FPI poises charges vs BOC head

The Federation of Philippine Industries (FPI) said they will file malversation charges against Customs Commissioner Napoleon Morales before the Ombudsman for overstating his bureau’s collection charges in 2006.

“They said they surpassed their 2006 target by P2.6 billion but technically this is not true,” FPI president Jesus L. Arranza told The STAR in an interview.

According to Arranza, the Bureau of Customs allegedly included in their computation the P2 billion advance the agency requested from oil companies. The P2 billion was paid for future shipments.

“Why should the advance be included in the 2006 computation? It was an advance that they asked for. Technically it should not be recorded as part of the overcollection of Customs,” Arranza explained further.

The law states that the BOC can distribute 15 percent of the excess collection to employees responsible for the big collection.

Arranza said that instead of P2.6 billion, the BOC should have only considered P600 million. “This will significantly decrease their reward.”

“Clearly this is malversation of public funds and we will be filing a case before the Ombudsman in two weeks time,” he told The STAR.

Arranza said the case will be against Morales because he is the head of the agency and allegedly received the highest share.

Arranza emphasized that he is not questioning the reward system per se but just the amount declared by Customs in 2006.

Aside from the alleged questionable computation of the reward, Arranza said Customs likewise included in their collection taxes the government’s importation of rice.

He said this should not be included in the computation because taxes from government are in a different category.

“This is aggravating the matter because before these things were not included in the computation of the collection of the agency,” Arranza said.

Because of the controversy, Arranza said he has sent a letter to the Commission on Audit (COA) today to review the reward system.