CEBU CITY, Cebu, Philippines – Cebu Customs Collector Ronnie Silvestre has admitted that the agency is hard pressed to hit this year’s P93-billion target he said has been set by the main Bureau of Customs (BoC) office because of the increase in volume of non-taxable imports.

Silvestre, who was guest at the 888 News Forum here recently, said Cebu Customs is even “struggling” to meets its March target of P663 million, or P29 million per day because they are only able to reach P22 million a day.

Last January, Cebu Customs was able to meet its target but were unable to do so in February and will most likely not be able to hit it by end of this month. He said he is “expressing doubts” about the target given to them by the agency’s main office.

“I'm really not optimistic at meeting the target for this year,” said Silvestre.

Last year's target was only P7.2 billion which, Silvestre said was easily attainable because of the duties paid in importing equipment in the construction of power plants by Korean-companies. This year, however, Silvester said there is no scheduled construction of power plants.

“Hopefully, if there will be a new power plant to be constructed here, our revenue will surely go up,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Bureau of Customs at the Cebu port has indicated that it wants the $20,000 seized from two Chinese nationals earlier accosted for carrying a bag containing suspicious-looking white powder, and which was forfeited in favor of the government.

BOC Cebu legal officer Edward James Dy Buco said he will conduct a preliminary hearing this week to determine probable cause to forfeit the money in favor of the government, based on Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) Circular 308, series of 2001, as amended by BSP Circular 507 of 2006.

The BSP circular requires anyone entering the country to declare possession of more than US$10,000 in foreign currency. The declaration is required in the disembarkation form that passengers are required to fill up and submit to the immigration officer at the airport. (Mars W. Mosqueda Jr.)