NextGen Day

MANILA, Philippines — On Wednesday, a party-list senator asked for a probe and the filing of charges against “big-time” government figures accused of agricultural smuggling.

Rep. Argel Cabatbat of the Magsasaka Party-list said the Department of Agriculture (DA) should investigate the smuggling problem, especially the involvement of officials from the Bureau of Plant Industry, who appear to be protected.

“We’ll keep gathering evidence and witnesses to expose the Bureau of Plant Industry’s corruption, which we believe is the main cause of smuggling in the country,” Cabatbat added.

Cabatbat has previously filed a resolution calling for a legislative investigation into the situation of border inspection and food safety rules, as well as the country’s border inspection facilities.

The resolution also examines the government’s ability to prevent imported vegetables and other agricultural commodities from being smuggled into the country.

“The country’s importation policies and poor border restrictions permit the spread of smuggling activities, which directly threatens the revenue of Filipino vegetable farmers and puts customers’ health and safety at risk,” he said.

He stated that Congress must prevent “economic sabotage,” specifically large-scale agricultural smuggling, and exercise its oversight function in ensuring the effective implementation of food safety and importation-related laws to protect local farmers’ livelihoods, ensure consumer food safety, and accelerate economic recovery through improved tariff revenue collections.

DA Assistant Secretary Federico Laciste Jr. confirmed several high-profile persons have called him to accommodate technical smuggling during a Senate hearing on Monday.

Technical smuggling is said to be possible because smugglers follow legal procedures to obtain an import permit or accreditation, but they do so by misusing or misdeclaring data and/or products.

“May mga tumatawag sa akin noon, mga matatas na tao, pero ang ginawa ko po dun, di ko na po inaksyunan, instead, tinuloy pa rin namin yung paghuli,’yung pagkaso.” (There were others that phoned me, high-profile folks, but what I did, I did not answer, and we still went ahead with the arrest and filing of cases.) It has many branches and deep roots),” he explained.

Senate President Vicente Sotto then demanded the identities of the aforementioned high-ranking officials, emphasizing that allowing such products into the country constitutes a health risk, given they contain formaldehyde. Laciste consented to write their names down.

“It’s a carcinogen that’s sprayed on vegetables to keep them fresh, and it’s used in building materials, cleaning goods, glues, and adhesives.” Ito’yung pinakakakain ng mga smuggler na ito, sarap isaksak sa bunganga nila yung mga iniismuggle nila, wala pang kinikita ‘yung gobyerno “It’s preferable to feed them illicit things because the government doesn’t have any money,” Sotto added.

The claimed anonymous high-ranking people, as well as the illicit import of various vegetable items, were criticized by DA Secretary William Dar.

“Whoever these individuals are, we condemn them, and we at DA will take immediate and firm action to censure those implicated among our ranks, officials, and employees.” We will bring administrative proceedings against these individuals if they are proven guilty… He remarked, “I condemn this heinous crime of smuggling and traffickers in general.”

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