By Macon Ramos-Araneta
Sen. Imee Marcos revealed there is still no taker for the position of Agriculture department secretary.
She said she talked to her brother, President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, who’s fully aware of the country’s rice condition. President Marcos currently sits as DA secretary.
Sen. Marcos also said that in the South, rice sells at PHP25.00 per kilo.
For the past three days, she said there were sudden reports that importation of rice is free of charge although imported rice is very, very expensive as it is being sold at more than PHP38.00 per kilo.
Saying that July and August are difficult times for the country’s farmers since there’s no harvest, she noted that September is harvest time.
So, “Why didn’t the NFA (National Food Authority) buy rice before July and August. If you go to their warehouse, they have stocks of rice,” related Sen. Marcos.
The senator also added that not even 30 percent of the NFA’s budget was spent.
“They still have money. Why don’t they buy rice from local (farmers)? Why the need to import?”
She pointed out that rice Importation should not be a knee jerk solution but a last resort.
At the same time, she rebuked the NFA for saying they don’t have money to buy local rice.
Meanwhile, Sen. Chiz Escudero challenged the Bureau of Customs (BOC) to immediately file charges of smuggling and hoarding against rice traders being blamed for the artificial shortage of the Filipino food staple and price spikes in recent months.
While there have been several raids by the BOC in the past weeks, Escudero questioned why no charge has been filed yet.
He underscored the need to file cases and bring these economic saboteurs to court. The move, he stressed, will serve as a warning that the Marcos administration is indeed serious in its campaign against smugglers and hoarders.
He also chided the BOC for their failure to disclose the names of traders and operators whose warehouses were raided by government authorities.
Republic Act 10845 or the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act of 2016 considers large-scale smuggling of agricultural products as economic sabotage and involves “at least PHP1 million worth of sugar, corn, pork, poultry, garlic, onion, carrots, fish, and cruciferous vegetables, in their raw state, or which have undergone the simple processes of preparation and preservation for the market, or a minimum of PHP10 million worth of rice, as valued by Bureau of Customs.”
On September 15, the BOC-Port of Zamboanga seized some 42,180 sacks of rice worth PHP42 million in Barangay San Jose Gusu after authorities discovered that the goods were not covered by the requisite sanitary and phytosanitary import clearance from the Bureau of Plant Industry.
Two weeks prior, the Customs bureau inspected three warehouses in Bulacan and found these stocked with suspected smuggled imported rice worth PHP505 million. It temporarily sealed and guarded these warehouses located inside the Intercity Industrial Complex in Balagtas, Bulacan.
Aside from calling on the immediate filing of the case against the hoarders, Escudero said the government should also update the public on the development of these cases in the spirit of transparency.
“They should answer: who oversees the disposition, how will it be disposed and what will be done with the confiscated rice?” he said.
