The amendments to the Customs Brokers' Act or RA 9280 would now exempt exporters from the mandatory employment of customs brokers to sign their export documents.

Representatives of the Senate and the House have signed the final draft of the amendments that were then forwarded to the Office of the President for final signature before it takes effect.

Should the President not sign it by December 16, the amendment will automatically lapse into law.

Since the law was passed in 2004, exporters have opposed the section requiring them to pay a certain percentage of the value of their exports by being required to take in a professional customs brokers to sign their papers instead of the exporters signing their documents themselves.

They had argued that the new law had added another layer of red tape and expense to the processing of export papers.

To support their stand, the government had suspended implementation of that part of the law until an amendment gets enacted.

Other urgent legislative reforms sought by the Philippine Exporters Confederation, Inc. (Philexport) and the Export Development Council (EDC) have not yet hurdled the legislative mill.

One of the most important is the Philippine ratification of the Revised Kyoto Convention (RKC), the global rule on simplified and harmonized customs administration that practices. It was due for presentation to the Senate floor for final debate before it is put to a vote.

Meanwhile, the Committee Reports of another bill, the proposed Anti-Smuggling Law, is being prepared by the Senate and House of Representatives.

A third urgent bill advocated by exporters and other groups but still hangs in the Senate is the setting up of a Trade Representative Office, an office tasked to attend to trade negotiations for the Philippines.

The proposed office seeks to correct the present set up in which three separate government agencies are involved in trade talks for the World Trade Organization. This includes a DTI team involved in non-agricultural market access, a Department of Agriculture team involved in talks on farm trade and a NEDA team involved in negotiating for trade in services.

Still another team led by the DTI is involved in ongoing talks in the ASEAN Free Trade Area and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation group.