NEWSBRIEFS

DAVAO CITY

Onions seized

THE BUREAU of Customs (BOC) on Thursday seized an 80-foot container van with Chinese onions valued at P6.4 million, an official said.

Edmundo Magdaraog, BOC acting district collector at the Port of Davao, said the onions, weighing about 130,000 kilograms, arrived in the country on May 9 and was consigned to Red Jaguar Merchandise.

He said on Thursday, Commissioner Angelito Alvarez ordered the shipment confiscated after it was found that the importer had no permit from the Bureau of Plant and Industry (BPI).

Ramon Miloria, officer in charge of the BPI’s Plant Quarantine Service here, said he recommended that the shipment be sent back to its origin.

But Magdaraog said the BOC would rather have the onions destroyed, with the help of the BPI. Dennis Jay Santos, Inquirer Mindanao

COTABATO CITY

Resilient bank

AMID UNSTABLE peace and order and natural tragedies that threatened this city’s economy, the Rural Bank (RB) of Cotabato remains resilient.

Its founder, Eusebio Tanghal, was even kidnapped in 1982 but it did not stop the growth of the bank, which came into being in 1961.

In 2003, the US Agency for International Development-sponsored Microfinance Access to Banking Services (MABS) program  transformed RB Cotabato into a conduit for lending to conflict-torn areas.

Since the MABS program, RB Cotabato has extended over P300 million in microfinance loans. About 95 percent of the borrowers are Moros.

Just recently, the Bangko Sentral and the Securities and Exchange Commission granted the bank another 50 years in operating authority. Inquirer Mindanao