LA TRINIDAD, Benguet, Philippines -- The volume of vegetables supplied at the trading post here has gone back to normal but farmers and traders fear that imported vegetables have penetrated Metro Manila's public markets.

Officials of the Benguet Truckers and Traders Association (BTTA) and the Benguet Farmers Federation Inc. (BFFI) have expressed alarm over the P16 million worth of smuggled carrots and potatoes from China that the Bureau of Customs (BoC) intercepted before the All Saints' Day break.

Traders said they also saw imported vegetables being sold in Manila's Divisoria market.

Members of a task force monitoring supply in Metro Manila informed local officials and farmers here about the confiscation of the imported vegetables. Local traders and farmers thought that the seized goods could just be the start of large-scale smuggling timed for the Christmas holidays.

Loreto Buya-an, BFFI public relations officer, and Agusta Bananoy, BTTA executive secretary, said the importation of vegetables has been the trend in the weeks approaching the holidays.

"The imports are cheaper than highland vegetables. But they should not be allowed to enter the country since local supply is always available," Buya-an said.

The trading post here is the Cordillera's biggest vegetable trading center. Traders haul close to three million kilograms of vegetables daily to Metro Manila, Southern Luzon, the Visayas and other lowland provinces.

Members of the Farmers.Net, a group of businessmen and vegetable industry players, have observed that government seem to relax its import restriction regulations on vegetables during the Christmas holidays.

Local officials also urged the Department of Agriculture to study the possibility of using legal remedies provided by international trade agreements, like the anti-dumping law, to block unnecessary vegetable importation.

Gov. Nestor Fongwan and Mayor Artemio Galwan asked what happened to the measures the BoC pledged to implement in 2008 to stop smuggling.

Among these were the BoC's coordination with the Bureau of Plant Industry concerning the issuance of import permits, communication with local officials to determine the availability of local vegetable supply and the assurance that BPI would release to the DA of copies of the inward-forward manifest (IFM).

The IFM is a document that could be used to check if incoming cargoes tally with the declared contents of imports.

The BTTA noticed that the number of traders' trucks that hauled vegetables had decreased in the last few weeks.

Balanoy said more than 60 trucks had been making daily trips here but the number dropped to around 35 recently.

BTTA members have informed their office here that they started cutting the number of trips since their customers have begun to buy imported vegetables.