‘Raiders of the lost rice’ foiled by lack of search warrant

Next time, get a search warrant.

A raid on a warehouse in Antipolo City, led by Pre-sident Arroyo herself, was aborted when the raiding team was reminded by Justice Secretary Hernando Perez that a court-issued warrant was needed before entering the premises.

Perez gave the reminder to the raiders and their high-profile leader as they prepared to swoop down on a warehouse in Barangay Mayamot in Antipolo where container vans filled with rice smuggled from Vietnam were believed to be hidden.

The President had proceeded to the warehouse to lead the raid after she received reports that agents of the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), who had been staking out the premises for a week, were being subjected to bribery attempts by the owners of the smuggled rice.

Mrs. Arroyo made the unscheduled trip to the Antipolo City warehouse after she visited Agnes Guirindola, a victim of kidnapping and attempted murder, at 10:30 a.m. yesterday in Marikina City.

Since the warehouse had not been secured before the President’s arrival, the black-vested personnel of the Special Reaction Unit (SRU) of the Presidential Security Group (PSG) jumped over the warehouse fence as their commander-in-chief stood at its gate.

Alerted about the lack of proper warrants, the SRU immediately vacated the premises.

In an informal press luncheon at Malacañang after the incident, the President said she did not lead a "foiled raid" by law enforcers on the warehouse.

"There was no raid yesterday because the search and seizure warrant is still to come. But I was already in the neighborhood and these NBI agents have been there for one week resisting bribe attempts and everything to secure it. Since I was near, I went there to make it known that we appreciate their work," she said.

Mrs. Arroyo added that she has instructed Customs Commissioner Antonio Bernardo "to execute" the search and seizure warrant that was later secured from the Antipolo City court for the container vans loaded with smuggled rice.

The President admitted to Palace reporters that she had gotten "impatient" after she read one of the reports coming out of the tabloids that some P1.8 billion worth of smuggled rice from Vietnam was detected by the Customs bureau as illegally imported because the shipment lacked a permit from the National Food Authority (NFA).

Some 23,460 cavans of rice that came in "tax-free" in May and June were declared as raw materials for making noodles for re-export by a local manufacturer.

"That is the subject and I am quite impatient because it’s been there for six days already and the NBI agents are cooling their heels just making sure it does not come out and they are supposed to be sleuthing. But because it has not been seized up to now, they are forced to stay there," the President said.

It is for this reason the President has left her PSG-SRU men behind to guard the contraband until the permits arrive.

The President had been to Guirindola’s house to congratulate Agnes, who, after nine years, finally got justice. "I decided to call on her because we’ve got to highlight (the fact) that we’re not just arresting, we’re getting convictions," she said.

Taking a lesson from the flak she drew when she went to the sala of a Pasay City judge after he passed a death penalty verdict upon the conviction of a kidnap suspect - that is automatically put on appeal before the Supreme Court — the President said she was avoiding making the same mistake twice.

"I should not go to the judge to congratulate him because there’s still a review (of the case) after. So it’s like I’m trying to influence the court," the President said of her decision to see the victim rather than the judge.

The President also credited the DOJ for the convictions, especially of suspects in kidnap cases that have taken years to prosecute.

"Today we had another conviction on kidnapping, a five-year-old case, so I congratulate Nani (Perez) that all these cases that have been languishing for a long time are now getting closed with a conviction," she said.

Mrs. Arroyo did not elaborate on which case she was referring to and failed to note that a Manila judge convicted a businessman the other day to three life terms for the 1993 kidnapping of two nephews of Jaime Dichaves, a crony of deposed President Joseph Estrada. — Marichu Villanueva