Finance Secretary Cesar Purisima said Thursday he instructed all department officials, including those of the Bureau of Customs, to let the incoming administration review the ground rules for the recently passed laws.
Purisima said incoming Finance secretary Carlos Dominguez would be able to review in advance the issuance of the implementing rules and regulations of the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act, Tax Incentives Management and Transparency Act and the Microfinance NGOs Act.
Purisima said Dominguez, who would be at the helm of implementing these laws as the next finance chief, should have a say on the preparation of IRRs. He also ordered officials to clear all policy actions with the transition team of Dominguez.
President-elect Rodrigo Duterte named Dominguez, a former agriculture secretary, as the new secretary of the Finance Department, in place of Purisima. Dominguez will oversee a powerful Cabinet position that will supervise both the Bureau of Internal Revenue and the Customs Bureau.
Dominguez disclosed earlier that he asked outgoing Customs commissioner Alberto Lina not to tie the hands of the Duterte administration in implementing Customs reforms. Dominguez said the Bureau of Customs was already preparing the implementing rules and regulations of the recently enacted Republic Act No. 10863 or Customs Modernization and Tariff Act.
“I called Bert Lina [and] I told him, Bert, I heard you’re putting out the IRR for that new law. I said don’t tie my hands. I said you know, obviously I cannot tell you what to do, or what not to do, but I’ll tell you, I’ll look at it very badly if you tie my hands,” Dominguez said earlier.
“I told him not to tie my hands. he can put it out but if he ties my hands, our hands, or Faeldon’s hands, that he cannot do certain things, there’s going to be hell to pay,” Dominguez said.
Duterte recently named Nicanor Faeldon, a former Philippine Marines captain who joined the Oakwood Mutiny in 2003, as the new Customs commissioner.
Purisima said he asked his team to clear all policy actions with Dominguez, including the ongoing Development Budget Coordinating Committee executive technical board discussions on the deficit and other programmed amounts, with the hope of the advance policy guidance providing stability and clarity in the remaining weeks of the transition period.
“When we in the DoF say public service is a relay race, we mean it. We don’t drop the baton when our time is up only for the next team to start over. Operationalizing professionalism means that our job until the end of June is to make life as easy as possible for the incoming team to hit the ground running on day one,” Purisima said.
Purisima said his team met with Dominguez’ transition team a number of times, with many more planned throughout June.
Purisima said his team also handed to Dominguez a comprehensive manual of key information about the DoF as well as an updated fiscal and economic data book for their perusal.
“We hope to give the incoming economic team all the information and resources they need to have an even more successful six years than we had. Their success is our success,” Purisima said.