Customs Commissioner Napoleon Morales is making a graceful exit from the bureau with at least five months of positive revenue collection or a surplus of P6 billion.

For the month of May, preliminary data culled by the Bureau of Customs (BoC) showed that it was able to exceed its target collection of P23.36 billion by about P300 million.

The initial figure, however, only comes from the country’s major ports that are connected to the electronic-to-mobile system of the BoC.

Last month's collection will place its surplus for the first five months of the year to P5.82 billion as against its target of P101.19 billion.

Morales said they were able to continually surpass the revenue goal because of the volume of importation that materialized against the programmed target and their intensified anti-smuggling efforts in recent months.

“We have already prepared the blue print…He (Morales' successor) just need to continue what I started,” Morales said in an interview.

Morales will turn over his post to the next commissioner in July as his term ends with the Arroyo administration.

“We have to face the reality of life that everything comes to an end. It hurts to say goodbye after I spent 42 years of my life working for the bureau,” he said.

But given the chance by the new administration, Morales said he is willing to be retained in the post because of his unfinished business in the bureau.

“Why not? We still have a lot of things to do. There is the the E2M (electronic-to-mobile system) where we still have to connect the sub ports,” he said.

Morales joined the agency in 1968 as a mere office messenger until he rose from the ranks--holding the post of Customs examiner, principal examiner, appraiser and principal appraiser. He also became a district collector of the Port of Batangas and Port of Manila.