BOC sets one last auction

CEBU, Philippines - The Bureau of Customs is set to hold one more auction of the 217,880 bags of seized smuggled rice by the middle of this month.

Atty. Dante Maranan, BOC-Cebu Chief for Auction and Disposal Division, said that the auction committee decided to hold only one more auction and not two for this month.

“If we conduct two auctions for this month, the same thing will happen as it will still form part of our September target collection. So, we decided nga kausahon na lang,” Maranan said.

Maranan said that delaying further the auction may affect their floor price of each bag of rice which is P1,280.

“Ug amo-a ning dugay-dugayon ang auction basin mahimo na unya ning P500 per bag kay hapit na baya ang harvest season. We have to sell the remaining rice as soon as possible,” said Maranan.

Lean rice harvest in most areas in the country particularly in Mindanao started in April and expected to last until September while October is the harvest season.

For this auction, BOC expects to earn at least P278 million.

BOC-Cebu for the past three auctions conducted have already earned P486,115,215.

A total of  607,880 bags of smuggled rice loaded in a 1,169 container vans  were seized by the bureau in April after it was misdeclared as stone and wooden slabs.

BOC-Cebu district collector Edward dela Cuesta however said the figure may no longer be the same (for the last auction) as the reported 272 bags of rice were pilfered at the container yard of the Cebu International Port.

This is aside from the fact, that there are also bags of rice, of undetermined number still, that were already damaged due to the heavy rains that sipped-in to the container vans.  (FREEMAN)