Duterte vows to find real person behind ‘rice smuggler David Tan’

INQUIRER FILE PHOTO

DAVAO CITY, Philippines – Mayor Rodrigo Duterte vowed to track down the real person behind alleged rice smuggler David Tan, the name tagged behind rice smuggling not only in Davao City but in the country as a whole but which has turned out to be fictitious.

“The name of David Tan kept coming up as a ‘smuggling lord’ operating in the country, and there has been a (court) injunction to it, but I have tried to track him down and found the name fictitious,” Duterte said during the Sunday television program Gikan sa masa, para sa masa.

“Whoever is behind it (rice smuggling), once I track him down, I’m going to file a case before the Ombudsman,” Duterte said, adding that on Monday, January 6, he would convene a conference with the Bureau of Customs, the Bureau of Internal Revenue, the Philippine Coast Guard, the Maritime Police and all the other government agencies involved to solve the mystery behind the rice smuggling in Davao City.

Earlier, Duterte warned rice smugglers not to mess with him in Davao City because he would be forced to take up harsh measures, after several shipments of rice without the necessary import permits were seized at the Davao port.

Duterte said that even if rice smuggling has been under the jurisdiction of national government agencies, he would suspend the importers’ business permits if the Bureau of Customs (BoC) and the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR) asked for his help.

“The first things you will lose will be your business permits, and maybe your pants,” Duterte warned.

“I can make life harder for you,” he added.

He said that the entry of cheap, imported rice has been threatening the livelihood of millions of Filipino farmers, and that he would always fight on the side of the farmers.

But the lawyer of two rice importing firms whose shipments were held in the Davao port, had cried foul over the “unlawful” seizure, saying that the government no longer had basis for imposing import permits after its Quantitative Restrictions (QR) for rice under the World Trade Organization (WTO) expired in June 2012.

Lawyer Benito Salazar, legal counsel of rice importing firms, Silent Royalty Marketing and Starcraft International, earlier challenged the government to explain their position on the issue.  Salazar said the government seizures violated WTO ruling and might put the Philippines in a bad light in international trade.