Various projects aimed at improving measures against smuggling in the country were fully achieved in 2020, the Bureau of Customs bared Saturday.
The bureau said it achieved a 100 percent accomplishment rate on its mission to improve measures against illicit trade under its 10-Point Priority Program for 2020 aimed at strengthening border security.
Various projects to improve the risk management system of the bureau were implemented.
Under the 10-Point Priority Program for 2020, the bureau, through its Risk Management Office (RMO), conducted the enhancement of the Selectivity System in the Universal Risk Management System (URMS) in which a new color lane was activated in September 2020; the enabling of Information Technology capabilities for a more efficient targeting or profiling; and the strengthening of RMO with the operationalization of its units such as Risk Assessment Unit, the Research and Analysis Unit, and the Strategic Assessment Unit.
The URMS is a system designed to improve the risk management capabilities of the bureau through the migration of information to a more user-friendly interface that allows storage of larger amount of information and the promotion of a paperless system.
According to the bureau, under the World Customs Organization (WCO) Mercator Program, the Risk Management Contribution has been successfully implemented in an effective and timely manner across the BoC.
A Risk Management Unit (RMU) was established to monitor and ensure feedback on the performance of Customs control treatments and interventions on cargo for reports and recommendations to be acted upon immediately.
It also implemented the monitoring of improvements through private dashboards where all information gathered from different sources are integrated and operationally presented.
The dashboard, the bureau said, provides support to analysts in qualitative and inductive research as it enables the viewing of profiles of the ports, previous transactions, and fraud records of any searched entities using the dashboard.
Under the priority project, the bureau also initiated drafting of guidelines for the National Customs Enforcement Network (NCEN) System of the World Customs Organization (WCO) and the establishment of the NCEN Database.
With this, the bureau’s RMO will serve as the national contact point for the Global Customs Enforcement Network to increase intelligence sharing to maintain a database of all smuggling cases and related data, for risk assessment.
NCEN is a system developed by the WCO to assist Customs administrations with the collection and storage of law enforcement information on the national level with the additional capacity to exchange this information at regional and international level.
“As of December 2020, 715 out of 971 or 74 percent cases of seizure are uploaded in NCEN,” the bureau said.