Dr Bernie Anabo Jr.
The message from the Bureau of Customs is getting louder—and this time, it is being delivered through simplification, speed and accountability.
No more unnecessary paperwork. No more redundant steps. No more making importers and customs brokers run the bureaucratic gauntlet just to get accredited.
At the center of this transformation is Atty. Melvin Joseph Banzon, AMO Executive Officer and Chief of the Compliance Assessment Office–Audit Division 2 under the Post Clearance Audit Group.
And Banzon is not merely talking about reform.
He is putting numbers, systems and concrete procedures behind it.
The Bureau of Customs is now preparing to formalize the new procedures being implemented by the Accounts Management Office (AMO) following its transfer to PCAG.
One of the biggest changes?
THE BANK CERTIFICATE IS ON ITS WAY OUT!
The requirement for proof of financial capacity through a bank certificate will be removed from the documentary requirements for importers, following the directive of Customs Commissioner Ariel F. Nepomuceno.
For years, documentary requirements have often been the source of delays, frustration and unnecessary administrative burdens.
Now, the BOC is sending a different signal:
If a requirement no longer serves a legitimate regulatory purpose, eliminate it.
That is precisely the kind of thinking that modern customs administration needs.
BANZON: FROM RED TAPE TO DIGITAL SPEED
During the recent joint BOC-PortCalls seminar on the new AMO rules, Banzon laid out the reforms with remarkable clarity.
Since AMO was transferred to PCAG, the office has adopted an internal digital evaluation and approval process and removed redundant procedures, including pre-checking.
That means fewer bottlenecks.
Fewer unnecessary handoffs.
And, hopefully, fewer opportunities for applications to become trapped in bureaucratic limbo.
But here is where the numbers become explosive.
AMO is reportedly receiving approximately 175 to 200 applications every day.
That is a massive workload.
Yet from January to June 2026 alone, AMO processed 7,110 importer applications.
That included:
– 769 new applications
– 4,448 renewals
– 1,764 applications with three-year accreditation validity
– 129 regular importers
For customs brokers, AMO approved 1,443 applications during the same period.
These are not small numbers.
This is an administrative machine handling thousands of transactions while attempting to reinvent itself at the same time.
THE 30-DAY GAMBLE
Perhaps one of the more significant innovations is the new post-evaluation system for renewals.
Importers seeking renewal can now submit four essential requirements and an affidavit of undertaking for the remaining documents.
If the requirements are not completed within 30 days?
Suspension.
That is the important part.
Streamlining does not mean surrendering control.
It means moving the control point to a more intelligent stage of the process.
The same principle is being applied to customs brokers.
They can obtain provisional registration through the submission of essential requirements, subject to completion of the remaining documents within the prescribed period.
In other words:
FAST DOES NOT HAVE TO MEAN LOOSE.
That distinction matters.
ONE CERTIFICATE IS ENOUGH
Another welcome move came after requests from customs broker organizations.
Banzon and AMO Acting Chief Atty. Christopher Dy Buco explained that brokers may now submit either the Certificate of Good Standing from the Philippine Chamber of Customs Brokers, Inc. or the certificate from the Professional Regulatory Board for Customs Brokers.
Not both.
That is precisely how government procedures should evolve.
If two documents establish substantially the same compliance requirement, why force stakeholders to produce both?
Less paper. More sense.
THE CPRS PROBLEM—AND THE SYSTEM THAT COULD KILL IT
But Banzon also exposed another operational headache: the activation of the Client Profile Registration System (CPRS).
Approval of accreditation is one thing.
Getting the CPRS activated so the importer or broker can actually transact with Customs is another.
And the culprit?
The aging E2M system.
According to Banzon, because BOC prioritizes revenue-generating transactions during much of the working day, E2M bandwidth is heavily focused on import entries and goods declarations.
Miscellaneous functions such as CPRS activation may therefore be handled after regular hours.
That is precisely the kind of technological bottleneck that cannot survive indefinitely in a supposedly modern customs administration.
And Banzon says BOC already has the answer in sight.
ONE SYSTEM. ONE CLICK. ZERO WAITING GAME.
BOC is procuring a new system designed to integrate the application, approval and activation processes.
The goal?
Once accreditation or registration is approved, CPRS activation can be automatic.
Now that is modernization.
No separate queue.
No unnecessary waiting.
No jumping from one system to another.
Approval in. Activation out.
BANZON’S AMO IS MOVING—FAST!
The statistics after AMO’s transfer to PCAG are equally telling.
From June 8 to June 30, AMO approved 1,440 importer applications and 152 customs broker applications.
For July 1 to 30 alone, another 1,427 importer applications were approved, including 1,294 renewals, while 252 customs broker applications were approved.
And AMO is not stopping there.
The office is training additional evaluators beyond its current complement of 15 personnel to deal with the enormous daily volume.
There is also a dedicated evaluation lane for the Top 1,000 importers, Super Green Lane participants and members of the Authorized Economic Operator Program.
That is risk-based administration in action:
Prioritize where speed matters most, while maintaining regulatory control.
THE REAL TEST: CAN AMO SUSTAIN IT?
This is where the applause must stop and the scrutiny must begin.
Reform announcements are easy.
Sustained implementation is the real battlefield.
The new AMO system will ultimately be judged not by seminars, PowerPoint presentations or press releases—but by what happens to an importer standing at the receiving end of the process.
How fast is the application approved?
How transparent is the evaluation?
How predictable is the process?
How quickly are problems resolved?
And most importantly:
Is the new system applied consistently to everyone?
These are the questions that matter.
Because modernization without consistency can simply become another form of bureaucracy.
THE BANZON CHALLENGE
Atty. Melvin Joseph Banzon has placed the numbers and mechanics of the reform squarely on the table.
Now comes the harder part:
Make it work. Make it permanent. Make it measurable.
If the bank certificate is no longer necessary, kill the requirement for good.
If pre-checking is redundant, eliminate it.
If four documents are enough for renewal processing, don’t secretly create six more hurdles somewhere else.
If digital approval is the future, make the system genuinely digital.
And if CPRS activation can eventually be automated, then automate it.
The Customs Bureau does not need another reform that looks impressive on paper but collapses at the frontline.
It needs a system that works when thousands of importers and brokers come knocking.
And that is where Atty. Melvin Joseph Banzon and the AMO leadership now face their biggest test.
FROM PAPER PUSHERS TO PROCESS BREAKERS
The AMO reforms represent something bigger than the removal of a bank certificate.
They represent a change in mindset.
Customs accreditation should not be a punishment for doing business.
It should be a mechanism for identifying legitimate stakeholders, enforcing compliance and protecting government revenue.
That is the balance.
And under Commissioner Ariel Nepomuceno’s modernization agenda, AMO is being pushed toward precisely that direction.
The transfer to PCAG may be temporary, with AMO eventually expected to move to the Assessment and Operations Coordinating Group.
But the reforms now being built must outlive organizational reshuffling.
Because the real victory will not be when the regulation is signed.
The real victory will be when importers and customs brokers finally say:
“This time, Customs made it easier—not harder—to comply.”
And if Banzon and his team can deliver that?
Then this isn’t just an AMO facelift.
IT’S A DIRECT HIT ON RED TAPE
