Aligned with the Bureau of Customs’ (BOC) mandate to strengthen border security measures and trade facilitation, the X-ray Inspection Project (XIP) successfully scanned a total of 209,030 containers from January to March 2022, improving its scanning performance efficiency by 14% as compared to the same timeline in 2021.

The BOC-XIP was established to further facilitate the clearance of legitimate imported goods and to enhance the Bureau’s capability in detecting shipments suspected to contain contraband, anti-social goods, and those of which are fraudulent importations.

Through the intensive profiling of incoming cargoes in the first quarter of 2022, the BOC-XIP conducted further verification of shipments which yielded suspicious images. Of these, 23 Warrants of Seizure and Detention (WSD) were issued, and Php33,040,645.15 additional duties and taxes were successfully collected by the BOC. The seized shipments with issued WSD were found to contain misdelcared and undeclared goods which are in violation of the Republic Act No. 10863, also known as the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act.

In 2021, four (4) mobile x-ray machines were successfully deployed by the BOC which greatly contributed to the continuous improvement of the XIP’s performance. These more advanced machines were deployed at the biggest ports of the agency, namely the Manila International Container Port, Port of Cebu, Port of Subic, and Port of Cagayan De Oro, which enabled faster scanning of containerized shipments without compromising non-intrusive threat detection capabilities.

The BOC, under the leadership of Commissioner Rey Leonardo B. Guerrero, continues with its commitment to enhance customs operations to minimize unnecessary delays in trade facilitation and provide quality government services to all its stakeholders.