Customs eyes Japan aid for equipment upgrade

By Joel E. Zurbano manila standard, oct 6,2008

The Customs bureau is turning to Japan for financing for its purchases of watercraft and equipment to combat smuggling and terrorism.

Commissioner Napoleon Morales said the National Economic and Development Authority has asked the Japan International Cooperation Agency for an undisclosed amount of grant for this purpose.

Apart from speed boats, the Customs’ “shopping list” includes two wide-range patrol boats; six x-ray machines for airport container scanning; two backscatter x-ray vans for car inspection; 10 infrared night scopes; 32 security card locks; 23 portable radiation detectors; 10 fiberscope with image recording equipment and 11 liquid explosive detectors.

“The enormous volume of cargoes being handled at sea ports and airports necessitates that we modernize our equipment,” Morales wrote the Neda. “And it’s only through a Jica grant that we could make it possible at the least possible cost to our government.”

Customs chief intelligence officer Fernandino Tuason said the Japanese funding agency is considering only the speed boat, saying Jica could not give all their requests.

Tuason said the Customs wants to reactivate the bureau’s water patrol division, which has been dissolved because of lack of equipment. It used to be under the enforcement and intelligence unit.

In the absence of its own patrol boats, Customs borrows patrol boats from Coast Guard, Tuason said. Customs spends about P15,000 per hour for the fuel alone, he said. “We don’t have a budget for patrol boats, even for outriggers,” he said. “That’s why we are asking for the grant.”

The Customs and the Coast Guard signed recently an agreement designating the latter to conduct searches, seizures, and arrests involving violations of the Tariff and Customs Code.
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so the Customs want to have their own "navy" but I think this will just bulk up the government bureaucracy some more.

why not just strengthen the coast guard and have it partner with the customs when it comes to smuggling interdiction, di ba its one of the mandates of the coast guard to apprehend smugglers so customs having its own boat unit will just be redundancy to the coast guard role.

BoC is well-funded, it can very well afford patrol boats and new personnel, might as well push through with this acquisition to make it more efficient.

This will free up PCG assets subbed to BoC. :thumb:

its true that it is inefficient and bureaucratic for many govt agencies to have their own "navies" ,but there is a practical reason for these, and that is budget allocation. each agency is allocated a budget and if the legislature deems it fit to allocate more money to certain agencies or if certain agencies are rich due to their fee collection such as the customs, then might as well let these agencies expand their turf and own ships and planes.

I have to agree now, I did some research and found that customs agencies in other countries have their own patrol boats and aircraft.

Maybe seamen from PN and airmen from PAF will seek transfer to the Customs for better pay and fringe benefits. :ssalute:

BFAR(Bureau of Fisheries) to get 7 patrol boats from Japan:

BOC wants to activate maritime division


THE Bureau of Customs (BOC) wants to activate its maritime division on the heels of a Japanese government grant for the bureau to buy patrol boats for antismuggling and antiterrorist activities on the high seas.

Fernandino Tuason, chief of the BOC’s Intelligence Division, said the agency is having a tough time engaging smugglers at anchorage, or those whose vessels dock far from the port, or even on high seas as the bureau does not have a single boat. The BOC is the government’s second-biggest revenue earner.

Tuason said the bureau could always talk to the Philippine Coast Guard on joint operations against smuggling within the country’s territorial waters.

“But the only problem is the funding. The Coast Guard is charging us P15,000 per hour if we use their vessel… and we do not have such money,” Tuason said.

A Coast Guard official, who requested anonymity, confirmed the amount.

Tuason said the bureau also plans to forge an agreement with the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR)—an agency of the Department of Agriculture—as the BFAR is scheduled to receive seven boats also from Japan in the next few months.

The BFAR, like the Customs bureau is also beset by budgetary constraints, Tuason added.

During the last decade, the BOC still has its own maritime division. Its main task was chasing smugglers at sea.

With the national government leaning down on the BOC to plug collection loop holes, Tuason said the bureau might seek top BOC officials to divert funds to start up the maritime division.

“But that may only start after we received the vessel,” Tuason said, referring to the P150-million grant from the Japan International Cooperation Agency.

The BOC earlier signed a memorandum of agreement with the Coast Guard to help each other in protecting the country’s coastlines.

Officials said the agreement formalizes the operations the BOC and Coast Guard have been practicing in the past, but that there were no provisions regarding the usage of vessels.

Business mirror
oct 8,2008

sir pacha, specs of abovementioned boats out already?

Both the BFAR and Customs patrol boats specs are dictated to a certain extent by the japanese since they are giving it as aid. The amount of money available also affects the specs of the boat. No concrete info in the specs so far. well, its "free" so lets just accept it.

BTW, the boats that Customs want are 2 to 3 long-range patrol boats(this are bigger) and unspecified number of shorter-range speedboats(smaller boats).

Regarding the BFAR boats, unless these 7 new boats are bigger boats for long-range patrolling, these may be the usual 25 footer patrol boats that the BFAR has been ordering from filipino shipyards(one of the BFAR boat builders is in Navotas if i remember correctly) for closer inshore patrols of municipal waters which by law is about 12 to 15 kilometers from shore(if my memory is right).

From the news article, it is implied that the 7 new boats will come from Japan which might be an indication that this might be a new class of bigger boats. If the intention is to have these boats patrol further out to sea, then we are looking at 7 new BFAR boats maybe ranging from 25 meter to 35 meter hull length (similar to the Spanish-built BFAR boats).

click also at my very own personal webpage below to see photos of banca patrol boats that I took when I was in Bohol. They belong to the Tagbilaran bantay dagat manned by philippine coast guard personnel. in fact these blue patrol boats are moored right next to the tagbilaran coast guard station, a one story structure with a tall high powered HF(high frequency) radio communications tower next to it for long range radio communications.


http://philippinenavy.tripod.com/bantay.html


I also saw a black bantay dagat patrol boat that i was told was used for night ops.