NextGen Day

Senator Cynthia Villar stated here on Thursday that a motion in the Senate seeks to change the current anti-smuggling law to impose stiffer penalties on those involved in taking advantage of farmers and consumers.

Villar claimed that a group of senators are eager to repeal Republic Act (RA) 10845, also known as the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act of 2016, and replace it with a law that would safeguard farmers from unfair trade practices as the cost of some staple agricultural products, particularly onions, continues to soar.

Large-scale agricultural smuggling is defined as economic sabotage by RA 10845.

Villar, the concurrent Senate chair for agriculture, told reporters during an impromptu press conference that “we will repeal it (the anti-smuggling bill) and write a new law that would ban any maneuver that will take advantage of consumers and farmers.”

According to her, the new legislation includes punishing cartels and imprisoning individuals responsible for extensive agricultural smuggling.

Villar spoke as a guest speaker at the first regional farmer’s summit, which was held in Barangay Macasandig in a private school.

She stated that RA 10845 is being amended, and one of the changes being considered is a stronger enforcement system.

Villar also asserted that “there is an abundance of supply of onions in the country,” but dishonest businesspeople are to blame for the market’s scarcity and rising pricing.

The price of onions is controlled by traders and importers. Because our farmers don’t have access to storage facilities, they purchase onions at extremely low costs and store them instead, she claimed.

The senator said that one approach to assist the growers of onions is to give them a place to store their products so they can sell them however they see right.

She continued by saying that things have already become so bad that some onion producers have not been able to overcome their rising debts and losses.

For instance, onions in Mindoro, according to Villar, were once sold for PHP600 per kg but were previously purchased for PHP15 per kg.

She emphasized that if the government were to import onions, it had to be during the planting season and not while they were being harvested.

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