Lina in fighting form

No way, Jose,” was Bureau of Customs boss Alberto “Bert” Lina’s defiant answer to a question from the media audience at the Samahang Plaridel’s Kapihan sa Ma­nila Hotel press forum on whether he was disposed to give in to the demands of truckers—who are threat­ening to stage a “truck hol­iday”—to reconsider his memorandum-circular stip­ulating that only truckers with legitimate businesses be allowed inside the Cus­toms zones.

The truckers were re­ported mulling over a re­peat of the crippling truck holiday two years ago that led to port congestion and subsequent huge losses to the economy. That truckers’ strike had the government capitulating, as the busi­ness companies had to pay additional demurrage fees, miss getting their cargoes on time, and even had to pay an unheard-of port-congestion fee to shipping companies.

Lina said the bureau is putting in place several measures aimed at restoring order and reducing bureau­cracy in the ports, and these include allowing only trucks with legitimate businesses to be at the piers. Before, truck­ers could just park their monster vehicles at the Cus­toms zones as they waited to transact their cargo business there. For some importers, this meant less costs and for the truckers, a ready income, of course. But the presence in the Customs zones of their giant vehicles as they awaited business propos­als unnecessarily congested the ports, inconveniencing those with legitimate cargo hauling contracts.

As explained by Lina, there is now a “digital rev­olution” in place requiring truckers who want to do business at the piers to “reg­ister” their vehicles before hand. It was here that he revealed why he thought the truckers were making the holiday threat: they are not even registered as legitimate cargo haulers at the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board. And as if to stress that he was not buckling under, Lina also revealed that he “grew up in Tondo;” his “No way, Jose” reply was, in essence, the re­action of the Tondo toughie in him to the truckers’ holi­day threat.

Lina’s digital revolution for the paperless transactions at the bureau is one one way for the government agency to zero in on problem accounts. For him, while he would rather focus on the future—and begged that he be not asked about the 1,900 container cargoes that went missing along the way from its Manila origin to its transshipment place in the Batangas port—an easy processing of papers at the Customs zones could lead to eventual economic growth.

In fact, he even wants banks to be open 24/7 so that importers can pay their fees and duties at such banks, electronically or oth­erwise, so that their ship­ments could be allowed to leave the Customs zones. To his dismay, the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas has not acceded to the Customs bu­reau’s request, which to him could lead to a surge in the economy.

Lina has a point here. Should the banks be open 24/7, the cargoes could be hauled even in the middle of the night, thus, leading to cost efficiency for the busi­nesses. Anyway, what Lina has put in place is a digital way by which truckers could even be spared from being flagged down by traffic en­forcers and policemen for concocted violations. All the truck drivers need to do is present their digital tags and pronto, they would be allowed to proceed to their destinations.

The Customs chief, who had to divest his interests in his businesses before tak­ing on a second attempt to shepherd collections, has vowed to take out the un­necessary use of paper and expensive forms. For in­stance, the filing of the Im­port Entry and Internal Rev­enue Declaration form and Supplemental Declaration on Valuation, as well as the acceptance of printouts of the electronic Airway Bill, would be discontinued and, in their place, the electronic processing of papers would be the order of the day.

This electronic informa­tion can then be shared with other government agencies that include the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the Phil­ippine Statistics Authority, the Tariff Commission, and even the Philippine Statis­tics Authority. The digital way for the customs trans­actions is one way by which Lina wants to carve out his legacy in this second at­tempt to head the bureau. He had quit before, as part of the so-called Hyatt 10, and then bought back his business interests that later flourished.

So, it is just as well that Lina vowed to meet the truckers’ protest move with that idiom. He was just as raring to meet the threat of the truck holiday just as he was prepared to put in place the paperless transactions in a bid to modernize the bureau and bring it to the digital age.