BOC-Cebu posts P123-M surplus collection for May

CEBU CITY -- Despite the two holidays this month, the Bureau of Customs (BOC) Port of Cebu on Friday said its revenue collection for June is on track, as it underscored the May surplus collection of PHP123.41 million.

BOC-Cebu Collector Elvira Cruz said the port posted a collection of PHP3.06 billion, which is 4.20 percent higher from PHP2.94 billion.

“It means a total surplus collection of PHP123.41 million,” Elvira said in a message sent to the Philippine News Agency (PNA) on Friday.

In his collection report addressed to Cruz, BOC-Cebu cash division chief Conrado Abarintos said the May revenue collection in Cebu port was “substantially higher” than the amount collected in the same month of 2018.

Abarintos told the PNA in a phone interview that the PHP3.06-billion May collection this year is higher by PHP442.16 million compared to the Cebu port collection of PHP2.62 billion during the same month last year.

“This collection performance is made possible, kudos to the men and women of the Port of Cebu for their unrelenting effort to help the government in collecting the revenue needed in order for it to continue serving the Filipino people,” Cruz said.

As the economy of Cebu and Central Visayas remains bullish, Abarintos is hoping that more volume of imported goods will arrive via Cebu port and translate such activities with more revenue collection out of duties and taxes paid by importers.

“We, in the Port of Cebu, are hoping that we will have a better volume of entries filed in the remaining half of the month of June,” Abarintos said.

The chief of the cash division of BOC-Cebu attributed the May revenue collection to the volume of oil importation that arrived in the first few days of June.

The said oil importation was supposed to arrive in the last week of May, he said. (PNA)