Exporters suspend bid to amend Customs law

After its brave and pro-active opposition over the implementation of the Customs Brokers Act of 2004 (R.A.9280), the Cebuano exporters finally renounced their fight for amendment.

"We don't have choice, but to give in and let the law be implemented," said PhilExport-Cebu vice president Jay Yuvallos.

In a recent meeting with newly appointed Custom's District Collector in Cebu Ricardo R. Belmonte, the exporters were told to stop seeking amendments of the law, and let it go first, or be implemented first, and the sector may file request of amendment after it sees major loopholes in the actual implementation.

"We can't stop the [implementation] of the Brokers Act. How can you amend the law if hindi pa nasusubukan," Belmonte told export leaders over their passionate call to amend the law.

In its position paper, Cebuano exporters, through the PhilExport-Cebu clarified that exporters are not against professionalizing the Custom Brokers as provided by the Customs Brokers Act.

However, the exporters maintained that the law should not undermine the interest of the export industry, an industry that contributes more than one-half of the country's GNP and among the biggest source employment to Filipinos.

Philexport Cebu appealed earlier to the government for the immediate amendment of R.A.9280, to exclude processing and documentation of export documents as exclusive work to Customs Brokers.

According to exporters, the services of Customs Brokers are not necessary in the filing and processing of export documents because exports do not require classification of goods and computation of taxes.

Customs brokers are trained to classify and compute tax on imports, not on exports.

Export document contains only basic facts and information about the export goods, the exporter, the buyer, the carrier and other basic transactional information for recording and monitoring purposes.

The exporter themselves can best represent and vouch the authenticity of the information found in export declaration compare to the broker.

Despite these grounds presented among others, Belmonte told exporters to let go of their efforts for amendments at this time, and let the law be implemented first.

Government thrust for the implementation of the law is the simplification of export procedures for expediency and competitiveness in the world market. Many exporters practice multi-tasking as part of their competitiveness strategy. It will be counterproductive for the companies to hire Customs Brokers whose task is sole to sign and process export documents.

This requirement also undermines the existing Automated Export Declaration System (AEDS) in Export Zone where exports documents are done paperless online.