CAVITE Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr. yesterday backed the recommendation of Swiss company Société Générale de Surveillance SA (SGS) to conduct pre-shipping inspections to stop the smuggling of agricultural goods in the country, saying the practice was effective under the first Marcos administration and will remain so if adopted again now.
Barzaga, a CPA lawyer, said the SGS’ proposal “bodes well for President Bongbong’s administration because it yielded positive results in the past” under the administration of his late father, Ferdinand Marcos Sr.
“That’s a good move. It makes a lot of sense because there will practically be no interference from the Bureau of Customs anymore. If for example, the shipment comes from China, the SGS will already inspect it there before sending it here. It will be given a clearance so once it arrives in the Philippines, no more inspections, it will just be released,” Barzaga said.
President Marcos Jr. last Thursday met with SGS officials, led by vice president George Bottomley and local managing director Cresenciano Maramot, and discussed the company’s proposal to expand its services since the SGS is only inspecting the country’s fuel imports.
The President has vowed to study the proposal and ordered a cost analysis to make sure that no burden would be passed on to consumers if the SGS conducts the pre-shipment inspections.
The President is the concurrent secretary of the Department of Agriculture (DA).
The Presidential Communications Office (PCO) has said conducting pre-shipment inspection (PSI) and conformity assessment procedures would ensure that the quantity and other specifications of the goods conform with sanitary and phytosanitary import permits and test the presence of diseases, among others.
SGS has said that the advance inspection would address smuggling and contain the spread of diseases such as African swine fever and avian flu, clarifying also that inspection and testing fees would be paid for by the exporter.
Under the arrangement, SGS will create a digital invoice in a standardized format prescribed by the authorities on an online government platform for registered or authenticated agricultural exporters, sellers and suppliers.
The invoices would be available in real-time to the DA, Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), and Bureau of Customs (BOC), which, according to SGS, would deter importers from manipulating or falsifying invoices and, instead, increase tax compliance, and enable cross-agency trade data reconciliation.
The Department of Finance and the World Bank has awarded a five-year contract to SGS in the last days of the first Marcos administration for the Comprehensive Import Supervision Scheme (CISS) at the BOC.
The SGS was then authorized to conduct pre-shipment cargo inspections at the ports of origin prior since the company was in charge of the valuation, classification and the release of clearance for all imports.
The practice was adopted under the first Aquino administration and the succeeding Ramos presidency but the contract was eventually canceled under the Estrada administration because of allegations of corruption against the Economic Intelligence and Investigation Bureau (EIIB), which was tasked to monitor SGS.
It was reported that from 1987 to 1998, SGS-CISS was able to increase customs collection at an average rate of 30.1 percent.
The PCO earlier cited the UN Commodity Trade data for the Philippines which showed a 20.48 percent discrepancy in the reported values of agricultural imports from 2010 to 2021, resulting in revenue losses for the government.
