The Bureau of Customs (BOC) is implementing an online payment system for the collection, transmittal, and remittance of Customs fees and other payments.
BOC signed a memorandum of agreement with the Bureau of the Treasury (BTr), Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP), and online payment service provider PayMaya Philippines, Inc to operationalize the system.
Under the agreement, PayMaya will accept from BOC clients payments of miscellaneous fees and charges, other than customs duties and taxes, through PayMaya’s Payment Solutions (PPS), the customs bureau said in a statement.
According to the Revenue Collection and Monitoring Group, the PPS will for the meantime cater to payment of Account Management Office registration and renewal fees.
PPS services include Online Checkout that accepts credit/debit cards for local and cross-border payments, Bills Payment via PayMaya app, Pay by PayMaya, PayMaya One POS (point-of-sale) terminal that accepts credit/debit cards and PayMaya QR payments, and Smart Padala Centers Bills Payment.
The MOA also covers payment of client service fees specified under the MOA, as well as the arrangement of depositing collected BOC fees and other payments to the DBP.
Under the agreement, the BOC will submit to the BTr a List of Deposited Collections (LDC) Report of daily remittance of collected BOC fees to the BTr-BOC-PayMaya Clearing Account where all collections/payments accepted and deposited by PayMaya under the MOA will be credited.
The LDC report will be prepared by the collection district that issued the Order of Payment and validated by BOC’s Revenue Accounting Division, based on detailed reports generated/submitted by PayMaya using its payment collection service.
BOC noted all offices and agencies of the government are mandated to improve transaction systems and procedures under Republic Act (RA) No. 11032 or the Ease of Doing Business and Efficient Government Services Delivery Act of 2018 and RA 8792, also known as the E-Commerce Act of 2000.
BOC assured the public it will continue to adopt measures necessary to facilitate and minimize disruption to the supply chain amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic.
BOC assistant commissioner and spokesperson Atty. Vincent Philip Maronilla in a recent online update said the customs bureau “will no longer shift to a manual system and we will maintain the online systems.”
Maronilla said BOC discourages face-to-face transactions and is gearing towards online transactions not just protect the health and safety of Customs employees and stakeholders, but also to “protect the integrity of the entire process” of the customs bureau.
BOC last May said it will implement more information and communications technology projects that will speed up trade facilitation, strengthen border security, and protect government revenues in response to the “new normal” brought by the COVID-19 pandemic.
These systems include the online payment of customs fees such as processing fee for registration of importers and customs brokers, online inventory management system for off-dock container yard/container freight stations, online inventory management system for customs bonded warehouses, a passenger customs clearance system at Ninoy Aquino International Airport, Electronic Tracking of Containerized Cargo, and the continuous stabilization of its Electronic-to-Mobile system.
The P5.5-billion Philippines Customs Modernization Project proposed by the World Bank was also recently approved by the National Economic and Development Authority Board. The project seeks to improve efficiency of Customs and reduce trade costs. – Roumina Pablo
