3,000 bags of rice seized at Cebu port

MANILA, Philippines–Some 3,000 bags of allegedly smuggled rice have been seized at the Cebu City port by personnel of the Philippine Coast Guard, Bureau of Customs and the Naval Intelligence Security Group.

The rice shipment, which originated from Davao City, was found on board the MV Super Shuttle Ro-Ro 8, an interisland passenger and cargo vessel owned by the Asian Marine Transport Corp.

In a report, the PCG headquarters in Manila on Wednesday said the 23 container vans of white rice had “no shipping clearance from the National Food Authority.”

The shipment, which the PCG described as “illegal,” was “consigned to a company called Cebu Lite with Cebu as the port of destination.”

The MV Super Shuttle Ro-Ro 8 left Sasa Wharf in Davao on Nov. 21 and arrived on Nov. 23 in Cebu.

At the Cebu port, “a certain Joel Banghal presented a Memorandum of Undertaking, dated Aug. 28, 2012 and signed by Angelito Banayo, former NFA administrator, as their authority for the shipment,” said the PCG.

The rice shipment will remain under the Cebu port authorities’ custody until its owner has produced the required shipping clearance issued by the NFA.

The ATMC was “also advised to hold the said cargo,” the PCG added.

Meanwhile, an undisclosed number of PCG personnel are still closely guarding the Vietnamese ship Minh Tuan 68 at the Legazpi City port and its cargo of 94,000 bags of imported rice, Commodore Joel Garcia, PCG-Bicol head, said.

For over two months now, the supposed farmer-consignees of the rice shipment, said to be worth P200 million, have yet to submit to the Bureau of Customs the cargo’s import authority and other documents legitimizing the importation.

The BOC had issued a warrant of seizure and detention against the vessel for alleged illegal transport of a rice shipment from Vietnam, but it has yet to formally seize the rice shipment, pending its hearing on the rice importation in question.

The Minh Tuan 68 arrived in the waters off Legazpi City on Sept. 2.

The shipment’s detention came less than two months after the BOC’s seizure of P430 million worth of smuggled Indian rice at the Subic Bay Freeport in Zambales.

PCG and BOC sources said it was “puzzling and intriguing” why the cargo ship chose to sail to Legazpi instead of Manila, which is closer to Central and Northern Luzon where the shipment’s consignees are based.