China milk rouses local gov'ts in Negros

The provincial government, headed by Negros Occidental Gov. Isidro Zayco, yesterday directed local mayors to create monitoring teams to ensure that contaminated milk formula and milk products from China are not sold in their towns and cities.

He also asked the public to report the presence of such products to their local officials or to the Bureau of Food and Drugs.

The BFAD has banned the import and sale of Chinese milk and milk products because of the death of infants and some 53,000 children reportedly hospitalized for kidney stones caused by the contaminated milk products.

The problem with such a monitoring effort is that the BFAD or the Department of Trade and Industry has no records of the entry of such products in Negros Occidental.

In short, what are they going to monitor? What brands of products will they pinpoint as coming from China?

The BFAD has issued a health advisory. But how do ordinary buyers distinguish the “dangerous” milk and milk products? The same goes with candies and other products.

The irony is BFAD has directed all licensed importers and distributors of registered milk products from China to temporarily stop importing and distributing the suspected products. The question is, what are these imported products?

In a way, both agencies of the national government just admitted that they are not on top of the situation or that they may be aware that a lot of such products have been entering the country clandestinely or through the major ports but do not know where they are.

Both agencies, together with the Bureau of Customs, should be investigated before a nationwide monitoring is undertaken. Otherwise, people will just be chasing a “ghost” – and just succeed in sowing panic and people not buying milk and milk products, and candies, too.

Sugar co-op files raps vs BIR officials

A sugar cooperative, which consists of some 3,000 agrarian reform beneficiaries as members, yesterday filed a complaint against acting Bureau of Internal Revenue 12 regional director Rhodita Galanto and chief legal officer Nanate Epon before the Ombudsman for the Visayas and asked for their preventive suspension.

Fr. Armand Onion, chairman of the Marao Parish Multipurpose Cooperative, charged before the Ombudsman that Galanto and Epon insisted on imposing the value-added tax on the cooperative for its sugar produce.

This, Fr. Onion said, violates the Revised Penal Code, the Civil Service Law and the Code of Ethical Standards for Government Employees.

He asked the Ombudsman to immediately investigate the complaint because of the economic difficulties faced by the sugar industry in Negros Occidental, especially the 3,300 cooperative members who hardly have enough to finance their sugarcane cultivation.

The start of the milling season is also the start of the planting of sugarcane crops. Aside from that, the cooperative members have to transport their harvested cane to sugar mills as well as spend for their daily subsistence. If they have to pay taxes to the BIR before they have even sold their sugar, that makes it extremely difficult for the small farmers, Onion said.

The sugar cooperative is the marketing arm for the sugar produced by its members and holds a tax exemption certificate under Article 51 of Republic Act 6938, the Cooperative Code of the Philippines, Onion pointed out.

The BIR Legal Service, on Dec. 18, 2007, also declared that the sale of sugar produced by the MPMPST to non-members is exempt from VAT payment, the Catholic priest pointed out.

Galanto, however, reportedly refused to issue the authorization to allow the release of refined sugar unless it submits a list of buyers, otherwise her office would collect VAT on all refined sugar to be withdrawn from the refinery by the cooperative.

Onion said the cooperative had paid P20,094 as advance VAT to the BIR for the withdrawal of 197 Lkgs of refined sugar, which is 60 percent of the total refined sugar under protest, he pointed out.

This, he added, is illegal.

The collection of advance VAT on 60 percent of the quantity of refined sugar to be withdrawn from the refinery and exempting 40 percent is illegal and constitutes grave abuse by Galanto, the priest added.

Epon was included in the complaint because she allegedly issued false information to the public when she said over cable television that there is a ban on the imposition of advance VAT on agricultural cooperatives.

Yesterday Galanto was to appear before the committees on agriculture and cooperatives of the Sangguniang Panlalawigan headed by board member Adolfo Mangao. The board took cognizance of the issue, which was exposed on the SP floor by board member Melvin Ibañez.

Last week, a thousand cooperative members hit the streets calling for the resignation of Galanto.

But Galanto fired back. “They can go to court. There are rules to follow. There’s no need to go to the streets,” she said.

This is an issue that has caught the attention of several sugar co-ops in Negros Occidental. It has already sparked a major controversy.