PRESIDENT Arroyo yesterday said she has
ordered the creation of two separate groups that would monitor
the collection performance and other operations of the Bureau of
Customs (BOC) and the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR).
Arroyo, in her opening speech at the weekly
Cabinet meeting, said the government-civil society bodies would
be similar to the Procurement Transparency Group (PTG) and would
monitor collection efforts, gather lifestyle and corruption
information, and follow up major evasion or smuggling cases in
coordination with the Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group.
She said the PTG version in the BOC would be
called Ports Transparency Alliance (Portal) while the BIR
version would be called Partnership for Transparent and
Efficient Revenue Service (Partners).
She said the objective of the two groups is
to increase revenue collection and fight smuggling. The finance
department estimates that P60-65 billion in revenues are lost
due to smuggling.
The government's revenue target this year is
P1.236 trillion is broken down into: BIR, P845 billion; BOC,
P254 billion; Treasury, P57 billion; and other offices P80
billion, of which P30 billion would come from privatization.
Arroyo said Portal's functions would be
defined by a Framework of Cooperation to Undermine Smuggling
(FOCUS) which will define the duties and responsibilities of the
BOC and the partner group that would monitor a smuggling-prone
commodity like oil (which shall be called Oil Watch) and
foodstuffs (under AgriWatch).
She said the membership of the group would
include churchmen, fair trade advocates and proponents of
anti-red tape. She said the group would also ask consumers to
boycott smuggled goods.
She said the selection of lifestyle checkers
would be done carefully so as to avert witchhunts.
Arroyo said Partners, which is the BIR version, is meant to
help remind the people the values of paying taxes which are
rebated in the form of public services. - Regina Bengco
