Prioritize measures vs smuggling of food, not tobacco — consumer group

CROP TO CRY FOR  
The once lowly onion has been in high demand since late last year, even with soaring prices due to smuggling and overpricing by traders. Consumers line up in January at the Department of Agriculture’s Kadiwa Store in Quezon City which sold the commodity at more reasonable prices. —NIÑO JESUS ORBETA

MANILA, Philippines — A consumer group urged the government to focus its efforts on curbing the smuggling of agricultural food staples instead of using the rising food prices as a reason to divert the attention to tobacco as among agricultural products covered by the anti-agricultural smuggling law.

According to Malayang Konsumer spokesperson Atty. Simoun Salinas, “given the rising prices of pantry basics like onions, the government is correct in taking steps to curb agriculture smuggling, but for some reason, some of our legislators would rather waste time on picking on the tobacco industry.”

“The issue here is food security. Food for the Filipinos should be the priority. Ito ang dapat na tutukan natin.”

Senate Bill 1812 seeks to amend Republic Act 10845, or the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act of 2016, and include both unprocessed and processed tobacco products such as cigarettes in the same category as rice, sugar, vegetables, meat and other essential food products entitled to protection against smuggling. 

RA 10845 classifies large-scale smuggling of these core household items as “economic sabotage.”

Salinas asked, “why give special treatment to tobacco products, and why now? Bakit are they riding on the issue of smuggling of agri products?”

“Poprotektahan mo ang industriyang tabako at sigarilyo? E bisyo yan, masama sa kalusugan yan, lalo na sa kabataan [Why prioritize tobacco and cigarettes when in fact they are vices that are harmful to our health especially to our children,” he said.

RA 10845 has received renewed attention in light of recent shortages of onions and essential food products as well as spikes in the price of indispensable food items ranging from meat, poultry, and fish.

The agricultural products enumerated in the anti-smuggling law that need protection are “sugar, corn, pork, poultry, garlic, onion, carrots, fish, and cruciferous vegetables, in its raw state, or which have undergone the simple processes of preparation or preservation for the market.”

The penalty for economic sabotage and large-scale agri smuggling under RA 10845 is a maximum of 20 years imprisonment and a fine twice the fair value of the smuggled product.

As this developed, amendments to the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act have been proposed through Senate Bill No. (SB) 1688 to make it more effective against the smuggling of agricultural goods.

In the explanatory note of the proposed bill, the “ultimate goal is safeguarding our farmers, consumers, and the agricultural sector, and attaining the goal of food security for the country.”

The bill lamented that “the country has been experiencing the highest price of onion in history: an all-time high of 700 pesos per kilogram.” 

READ: BOC seizes P153 million smuggled onions from China

“This was made worse by reports of smuggling and price manipulations by unscrupulous people.”

Under the proposed measure, aside from smuggling, the hoarding, profiteering, and cartels of sugar, corn, pork, poultry, garlic, onion, carrots, fish and cruciferous vegetables in the amount of one million pesos, or rice in the amount of ten million pesos will be considered economic sabotage.

SB 1688 now also punishes hoarding, profiteering, and the cartels involved in agricultural products with imprisonment of not less than 17 years.

Those found guilty of the said offenses will also be fined twice the fair value of the profiteered, hoarded, and cartelized agricultural product.

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