Marcos appoints Charlito Mendoza as new BIR chief; Lumagui out

President Ferdinand R. Marcos, Jr. appointed Finance Undersecretary Charlito Martin R. Mendoza as the new Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) Commissioner, replacing Romeo D. Lumagui, Jr.
In a Viber chat to reporters, acting Press Secretary Dave M. Gomez confirmed the change within the agency but did not elaborate further.

Mr. Mendoza’s appointment was signed on Wednesday.

He used to head the Finance Department’s Revenue Operations Group, working closely with the BIR and the Bureau of Customs (BoC).

Mr. Lumagui was a BIR deputy commissioner when the President’s term started in 2022, but was promoted as BIR chief in November 2022 or four months after Mr. Marcos took his seat.

The new BIR chief’s appointment comes as Mr. Lumagui earlier said it may fall short of its P3.219-trillion collection target for 2025 due to several emerging headwinds.

“The overall performance is low… so there’s a need to recalibrate or recalculate the entire goal,” BIR Commissioner Romeo D. Lumagui, Jr. told BusinessWorld in an interview in mixed English and Filipino on Nov. 11. “As things stand, it’s going to be quite difficult.”

The latest Treasury data showed that BIR collections jumped by 10.88% to P2.32 trillion in the first nine months of the year. However, this was 2.63% lower than the programmed P2.38 trillion for the January-to-September period.

The BIR, the main revenue collection agency, needs to collect around P897 billion to reach the P3.219-trillion full-year program. — Chloe Mari A. Hufana