Senate President Vicente C. Sotto III. Senate PRIB file photo / Albert Calvelo
MANILA, Philippines — The Senate has presented a new proposal to the government to resolve the conflicts over imported pork products, Senate President Vicente “Tito” Sotto III has said.
Sotto, however, refused to disclose the contents of their new proposal, saying he does not want to preempt the Department of Finance (DOF).
“As soon as I have a word from him [Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III], I’ll announce,” he said in a text message on Tuesday.
In a text message Monday, Sotto disclosed that the Senate “just agreed to a new proposal,” which he would present to Dominguez later.
Sotto earlier confirmed his backchannel talks with the finance chief after Senator Cynthia Villar’s suggestion to come up with a compromise instead of publicly debating on the government’s new importation policy on pork products.
Aside from reducing the tariff rates of imported porks, the government is also pushing to raise the amount of imported pork from the current 54,000 metric tons (MT) to 400,000 MT.
These and other issues such as the alleged P6 billion kickbacks should the volume of imported pork is raised were investigated by the Senate Committee of the Whole headed by Sotto.