Agri group says hoarding, smuggling remain rampant

Despite the presence of Republic Act No. 12022, or the Anti-Agricultural Economic Sabotage Act, signed by President Ferdinand "Bongbong" Marcos Jr. on 26 September, the Agricultural Sector Alliance of the Philippines, Inc. (AGAP) stressed that rice hoarding and smuggling remain rampant in the country.

Even Senator Cynthia Villar, chairperson of the Committee on Agriculture, Food, and Agrarian Reform and principal sponsor of the measure in the Senate, wondered why the law is seemingly unfulfilled.

With this, AGAP Partylist Rep. Nic Briones has asked the President to review Executive Order (EO) 62, which lowered the tariff on imported staple food to 15 percent from the previous 35 percent.

The Chief Executive issued EO 62 on 29 June this year, ordering the modification of nomenclature and tariff rates on various products to ensure a continuous supply of goods and protect the purchasing power of the Filipino people.

However, Briones said the EO failed to reduce the retail price of rice in the market.

“Rice should only be at P41 to P45 per kilo because of the lower tariff. It is clear that some traders are taking advantage of the Executive Order,” he said.

In a congressional hearing last week, Bureau of Plant Industry Director Glenn Panganiban admitted that importers or traders were the ones who benefited from the EO and not the consumers.

The Bureau of Customs (BoC), for its part during the hearing, said the government had lost at least P12 billion in revenues because of EO 62 or the lowering of tariffs, anchored under the Rice Tariffication Law.

“If that’s the case, where our consumers have not benefited,” Briones proposed continuing the review, or immediately revoking the tariff reduction and reverting to a 35 percent tariff on imported rice.

Also, Briones called on the Department of Agriculture to identify the top 10 rice importers in the country, to ensure transparency, and to stop rice cartels, profiteering, hoarding, and smuggling, as mandated by the Anti-Agricultural Economic Sabotage Act, penned by Briones in its Congress version and Villar in the Senate.

To recall, the BoC recently seized 21 containers, or 508 tons, of smuggled frozen mackerel from China at the Manila International Container Port (MICP), amounting to P178.5 million.

Briones identified the importer as “Pacific Sealand Foods Corporation,” which did not have an application for the mackerel importation, nor a Sanitary and Phytosanitary Import Clearance when it was dropped off at the MICP, making it considered smuggling.

“This falls under the Economic Sabotage Act, and the penalty for this is non-bailable and lifetime imprisonment. This law needs to be enforced along with the five-fold fine that should be imposed on anyone who violates this Act,” Briones said.