PAGADIAN
CITY: The Provincial Government of Zamboanga del Sur, wary of the rampant rice smuggling
in the country, has tapped police and military assistance to help restrain rice
smuggling using the province as one of its entry point.
Saying
he is acting without delay and decisively against the problem, Vice-Governor
Juan Regala said the Provincial Board passed a resolution, Thursday, deputizing
the police and military to help them in the fight against the contraband rice.
Rice
smuggling today is out of control, as media reports the staple food being
misdeclared as other merchandise or ukay-ukay, according to reports from the Bureau
of Customs (BOC).
This
kind of clandestine operation makes a blow on the economy by making prices decline on domestic rice affecting the country's officially authorized rice sector.
Regala
said the move came after the reported confiscation of 8,000 sacks of smuggled
rice from Tawi-Tawi, estimated at P10 million, intercepted in one of this
province’s town port.
The
Provincial Government, through Gov. Antonio Cerilles, has already called on the
Bureau of Customs (BoC) to investigate
the seizure of smuggled rice in Margosatubig.
A
Philippine Daily Inquirer report last year has said that rice smuggling in the
country has been run by giving kickbacks that reached between P3.85 billion and
P6.45 billion by a certain Chinese trader to some BOC officials.
Even
Congress has owned to the fact on the public perception that the Philippines
has become a ''center of rice smuggling'' with illegal shipments of Indian and
Vietnamese rice worth millions reaching Subic and Legazpi ports.
Rice
and oil were said to be the two most smuggled goods in the country because of
the huge profits involved in bringing these commodities in underhanded.