Farmers’ cooperatives denounce unabated rice smuggling

More than 450 farmers’ cooperatives throughout the country denounced yesterday what they described as unabated smuggling of imported rice by unscrupulous rice traders.

In a letter to Senate Majority Leader Loren Legarda, leaders of the farmers’ cooperatives said lawmakers should immediately look into the matter as the country would soon be flooded with imported rice.

An excess supply of imported rice would depress prices of the staple, including the local variety, to the prejudice of Filipino farmers, they said.

They said unabated rice smuggling is good for foreign rice producers, not for their local counterparts, and has been going on under the very noses of corrupt Customs and National Food Authority (NFA) officials.

The aggrieved cooperatives informed Legarda that last June, the NFA gave farmers’ organizations and traders the authority to bring in a limited quantity of imported rice.

All importations were supposed to have ended last Aug. 31 but several favored traders continue to bring in the rice by recycling their old permites, they said.

This cannot happen without the connivance of corrupt Customs and NFA officials since it would be easy to verify the importation authority.

Not too long ago, a Butil party-list representative in the House, Ben Cruz, made a similar denunciation of rice smuggling by traders.

In a privileged speech, Cruz said besides padding their importation authority, traders also misdeclare their shipments to avoid payments of higher import duties and taxes. — Jess Diaz