Why is rice still being smuggled here?

We won’t be discussing the State of the Nation Address (SONA) of President Benigno “P-Noy” Aquino III because of the lack of time to analyze it. Anyway we do have a lot of issues to write about and one of them was that news that pretty soon, the Philippines would be a rice exporter because of a bumper rice harvest. This sounds very exciting for Filipinos because we’ve had the presence of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) since 1960 and we are proud that we literally taught our ASEAN neighbors on how to produce the new variety of rice that triggered the “Green Revolution.”

But are we truly free from our rice importing days? In truth, I have always doubted this because I know that the Aquino regime thrives mostly on its propaganda machinery to prop themselves up. Then came that news report from The Philippine STAR last Saturday, which had a photo of Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon inspecting the P42.5 million worth of smuggled rice from Vietnam in 130 container vans last June that was off loaded in the Subic Bay Freeport. In my book, this was one picture that spoke more than a thousand words.

I always go by simple logic. If indeed the Philippines were already a rice exporter, instead of being a rice importer, therefore it must be said that our bodegas nationwide must be full of rice stocks. If so, having so much rice would result in a price reduction of rice because of that law of supply and demand. So this brings us to our next question, why do people still smuggle rice until now? It just doesn’t add up!

My hunch on this is, perhaps when the people under Lito Banayo of the National Food Authority (NFA) inspected our rice bodegas, they also included the rice that were imported from Vietnam and I might add, including even smuggled rice. Hence, they eagerly reported this scenario of overflowing rice to President Aquino who in turn declared that soon we should be importing rice rather instead of being a rice exporter.

I asked my friends about this and they simply told me… that incident happened in Subic Bay Freeport… but we know that rice smuggling continues in every port. So what really is the bottom line here? Is the Aquino regime trying to mislead our people into believing that we are already self-sufficient in our food production? I emailed this column before the President’s SONA… I just hope that he won’t even dare mention this issue because it’s just too full of holes.

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All the while, I thought that there were only three ways to amend our Constitution, through a constitutional convention or through a constituent assembly or through a People’s Initiative. But apparently, someone has introduced a 4th way… and that someone is Ateneo Law Dean Fr. Joaquin Bernas who was one of the framers of the 1987 Constitution. So now, there is a 4th mode called the “Bernas mode,” where Charter changes take on the elements of a House bill and when it gets approved in the House, it is sent to the Senate to approve them, then it is given to the Commission on Elections for ratification by the people in a plebiscite.

I don’t know about you… but if this is their way of amending our Charter, I’ll bet you that Senators or Congressmen will just amend our Charter year after year because Fr. Bernas gave them the easiest and most convenient route to amend our Charter. If you ask me, we should never ever consider this option because it would only anger our people all the more. Fr. Bernas is introducing an option that is not found in the 1987 Constitution and if Congress and the Senate even consider this option, they are staring in the face of another constitutional crisis.

From day one we have always believed that the only way to change our Charter is via a constitutional convention (concon). We do not embrace a Constitutional Assembly (con-ass) favored by House Speaker Feliciano “Sonny” Belmonte, Jr. and Senate Pres. Juan Ponce Enrile for the simple reason that we don’t trust politicians to change our charter. Gads, we cannot even trust them to come up with the anti-dynasty law, which is embodied in the 1987 constitution. Worse for them, the latest SWS surveys showed a huge percentage drop in their popularity. So let’s drop this cockamamie idea of having a 4th option. Yes, let’s cha-cha but only via a con-con!

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To date, pharmaceutical giant Pfizer has not given us any response to our column exactly a week ago regarding their self-imposed removal of the cough and colds medicine Robitussin. We wait with bated breathe for them to show some kind of transparency as to why Robitussin has been removed from the shelves. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is no help either. They should demand from Pfizer to give the public the real reasons behind why these medicines were abruptly pulled out of the shelves of all drugstores.

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