Seized smuggled onions can help cut prices, Customs says

(FILE) A Customs personnel inspects a bag of allegedly smuggled red onions seized in a checkpoint in Labangan, Zamboanga del Sur on Nov. 24. PHOTO FROM BOC

The Bureau of Customs (BOC) is hastening the possible donation of seized contraband onions to the Department of Agriculture (DA) and other agencies that “can better use” the high-value crops, prices of which have hit P600 a kilo in some public markets.

BOC Commissioner Yogi Filemon Ruiz said at the weekly Kapihan sa Manila Bay news forum on Wednesday that, since the start of this year up to Dec. 22, the bureau has confiscated P23.5 billion worth of contraband, including various agricultural products.

Ruiz said this was a result of 562 seizure proceedings that the BOC initiated against “unscrupulous importers.”

Possibly through Kadiwa

The BOC “is open to donating [contraband onions] to the Kadiwa stores [or] to other government agencies that are directly involved in relief operations,” the BOC chief said.

In September 2019, at the height of mobility restrictions imposed as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic, the DA launched its “Kadiwa ni Ani at Kita” program.Being implemented in partnership with the Department of the Interior and Local Government and the state-run Food Terminal Inc., Kadiwa is meant to establish a direct link between farmers and fisherfolk and consumers through outlets for agricultural produce.

Ruiz said seized contraband, such as onions, may also be donated to other agencies “that can better utilize the agricultural products subject to regulatory inspections.”

Highly perishable

He was referring to regulations like the SPS or sanitary and phytosanitary standard, which ensures that agricultural products are not bringing in diseases that are harmful to the Philippine ecosystem.

“If the [recipient agencies] can attest that these are fit for human consumption then so much the better,” Ruiz said.

When asked why the donation is not yet being done, Ruiz said there are certain processes that the BOC has to follow.

“But these things (regulatory processes) are being expedited,” he said. “Considering that these (the onions) are perishable, we cannot afford to sit on this matter.”

Ruiz said the BOC has in its custody P191 million worth of onions, which are at the ports where the cargoes were apprehended, still in their container vans.

Data from the BOC show that over the past six weeks, the agency has intercepted 60 shipping containers loaded with undeclared or misdeclared agricultural produce worth more than P253 million.

In the past three weeks alone, the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service found P171.35 million worth of contraband, including fresh red and white onions. INQ

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