(File photo)
MANILA – The chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee on Tuesday said smugglers of agricultural products should be prosecuted and held accountable to protect the country's farmers.
During a House hearing, Albay Rep. Joey Salceda instructed the Department of Justice (DOJ) to use the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) to prosecute cases more strongly against large scale agricultural smuggling pursuant to Republic Act No. 10845, or the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act.
The law designates large-scale agricultural smuggling as “economic sabotage.”
“Large scale agricultural smuggling is the single gravest sin to Philippine society today. I am disappointed in the Department of Justice that it does not use the efforts of the NBI enough,” Salceda said in response to an answer from the DOJ that it merely uses its own initiative to pursue cases from the Bureau of Customs (BOC).
He said leaving the prosecutors to figure out these agricultural smuggling cases based on the facts from the BOC is a "rather simplistic approach" to this.
"I am making this statement that the NBI should be more involved in pursuing cases against these smugglers,” he added.
Salceda also said there are issues of jurisdiction with the prosecution of cases of agricultural smuggling.
“The implementing agency of the law is unfortunately the Bureau of Customs, so there appears to be an issue of clarity about who should take the lead in pursuing these cases,” he said.
He cited that the mandate of the Criminal Investigation and Detention Group, under the Philippine National Police, also includes “monitoring, investigation and prosecution of all crimes involving economic sabotage.”
“I think we need to clear that up. It appears that RA 10845 will fall under the jurisdiction of this committee as well,” Salceda said.
Salceda said he is also mulling amendments to the Special Safeguards Law, such that regardless of whether imported goods are smuggled or not, the safeguards will apply.
“All income regardless of legality of source is taxable, because all of it is income regardless. All trade, whether legal or smuggled, should also be considered trade volume regardless, so that we can also protect the local agricultural sector," he said.
During the same hearing, BOC Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero reported that from 2019 to April 2022, the BOC was able to complete 546 seizure operations, which in total has an estimated value of PHP2 billion.
The BOC’s anti-smuggling programs include: 1) automation of BOC processes, 2) acquisition of modern high-speed scanning equipment, 3) supervision of all scanning and inspection activities, and 4) joint operations with other concerned agencies for seizure operations.
These initiatives aim to help address port congestion, improve the efficiency of the agency’s alert system, and increase revenue collection.
Meanwhile, Department of Agriculture Undersecretary Fermin Adriano noted that the DA has started activities geared at modernizing high-value crops and assisting growers to learn more advanced ways to process their produce. (PNA)
