Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon on Tuesday acknowledged as “real” the problem of oil smuggling in the country but he disputed an INQUIRER report which quoted him as having said that it had become rampant during the first two-and-half years of the Aquino administration.
The Bureau of Customs (BOC), through its Run After the Smugglers (RATS) campaign, has filed the following cases against oil firms and individuals suspected of oil smuggling and other illegal activities related to the importation of petroleum products.
The Bureau of Customs’ intensified “Run after the Smugglers,” or RATS campaign will also target an undisclosed number of BOC officials and employees who have been making fortunes by conniving with traders in the illegal importation of goods from various parts of the world.
Field rats have been ravaging palay planted in more than 5,000 hectares of farms in Isabela since last week, but agriculture officials said the damage was only minimal as the affected areas represent only 10 percent of the province’s total rice lands.
PHNOM PENH—So many rats have drowned in Cambodia’s worst flooding in over a decade that the cross-border trade in the rodent’s meat has plummeted, Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday. “Each year 17 tons (about 37,000 pounds) of rats are exported to Vietnam. This year there is a shortage of rats for export because the [...]
Malacañang has ordered the 90-day suspension of an elite Bureau of Customs team of antismuggling operatives for alleged abuse of authority and extortion activities. Suspended were Customs Deputy Commissioner Gregorio Chavez and seven of his men in the Run After The Smugglers (RATS) group following a complaint by Sanyo Seiki Stainless Steel Corp. The suspension [...]
CITY OF MALOLOS—Thanks to hunters, and a promise of prizes from the provincial government, Bulacan’s rice farms were saved from widespread devastation by field rats. Farmers, who joined a rat hunting competition launched by Gov. Wilhelmino Sy-Alvarado in May, killed 106,620 rats and saved about 80 percent of the province’s rice farms from rodents that [...]
DAVAO CITY, Philippines – Three of the 31 persons suspected to have contracted leptospirosis since the deadly floods of June 28 in Talomo district here have died, according to a health official. Dr. Cleo Fe Tabada, medical officer of the Regional Epidemiology Surveillance Unit of the Department of Health in Southern Mindanao, said all the [...]
