PH agriculture producers say smuggling now worst in 20 yrs

DAGUPAN CITY—Rice, vegetable, onion and fishery industry leaders have linked up with a lobby against pork smuggling, which, they claim, has threatened the country’s food security.

Rosendo So, chair of the party-list group Abono and director of the Swine Development Council, said allied industries of pork and chicken and other food sectors have formed a united front to combat uncontrolled smuggling and excessive importation of pork and agricultural products.

The alliance was joined by Agap Rep. Nicanor Briones, Edwin Chen, president of the Pork Producers Federation of the Philippines, and Daniel Javellana Jr., chair of the National Federation of Hog Farmers Inc.

So said the farmers are hurting and the unabated smuggling of imported agricultural products has been depriving government of revenues.

Imported pork and chicken products, rice, vegetables and fish have flooded wet markets and supermarkets, edging out locally grown agricultural products.

“Worse, the smuggling syndicates, [with the help of] the customs and agriculture officials, managed to evade paying the right tariff, depriving the government of billions of pesos in revenues,” So said.

He said party-list groups representing the farm industry like Abono, Alyansa Agrikultura, Agham and Butil have urged the Bureau of Customs and the Department of Agriculture to go after smugglers and unscrupulous importers of meat and other agricultural products.

“The smugglers are the economic saboteurs as they are depriving the government of much-needed revenues, as well as killing the local agricultural industry with misdeclared or underdeclared imported products,” he said.

He repeated a warning he made last month of a nationwide pork and chicken holiday if, he said, their demand for government to institute anti-smuggling mechanisms was not heeded.

“We implore [Customs] Commissioner Ruffy Biazon to do his job. Or else if he cannot do it, it is better for him to resign,” So said.

He added: “We are not [asking for] special treatment. We only want a fair playing field and competition. The smuggling syndicates are wreaking havoc on the agriculture sector.”

“We do not want to come to that point, but the continued inaction leads us to the strong possibility of a market holiday to dramatize our point against the continued smuggling of foodstuffs which are threatening the local agricultural producers,” So said in a statement.

So also said that other agricultural producers have decided to unite so they could face their common problems together.

In the same statement, Briones said the issue of smuggling had ceased to be a cause taken up by pork and chicken producers alone. Briones said the entire agricultural sector had become affected by smuggling.

He also said pork and poultry producers held off a planned pork and chicken holiday after officials agreed to take action, but the promises made to them three weeks ago did not happen.

“Actually, this problem is the worst in the last 20 years, and it is blatantly occurring despite the Aquino administration’s  ‘tuwid na daan’,” the groups said in the statement.