Rice scandal probers should call ex-NFA chief

Whether or not David Bangayan is the country’s alleged rice smuggling kingpin David Tan is no longer an issue; the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) has clearly stated that Bangayan and Tan are one and the same person.

What is at issue is who made Bangayan, who is also said to be also Tan, what he is today.

The Senate’s committee on agriculture, chaired by Sen. Cynthia Villar, hopefully, sees the forest for the trees.

Of course, the “forest” is the whole picture of rice smuggling, including the people behind it and government officials who abet it.

The “trees” are the rice importers who make their business a front for smuggling the commodity, and the brokers who facilitate the illegal rice importation.

Unless the Villar committee sees the forest, instead of the trees, her investigation into the rice smuggling will go the way of past congressional hearings: All sound and fury, signifying nothing, as they say.

Discerning people who watched the Senate proceedings on the ANC channel on Wednesday knew the investigation was not meant to ferret out the truth in aid of legislation.

It was made to show off to the public the committee members’ investigative prowess which they deceive themselves into thinking they have.

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If the Villar committee really wants to dig into the roots of rice smuggling during the Aquino administration, it should summon Lito Banayo, former administrator of the National Food Authority (NFA).

It was during Banayo’s time at NFA that rice smuggling peaked.

Banayo, according to my sources at the Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Customs, issued import permits which the smugglers used not once but many times.

Banayo resigned after he learned that Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala was breathing down his neck.

He gave as reason the fact that he was running for a congressional seat in Butuan City.

But that appeared to be only a ploy, as he didn’t file his certificate of candidacy in the 2013 elections.

The Villar committee may also want to interview the customs collector of the Cebu Port during Banayo’s time as it was in this port where smuggled rice landed.

In the next hearing, the committee might also want to ask Alcala, who was present in Wednesday’s hearing, about Banayo’s activities during the latter’s term as NFA chief.

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Banayo was former First Gentleman Mike Arroyo’s ardent critic for the latter’s alleged corrupt activities.

But it was rumored that he wasn’t as clean.

Ping Lacson, then a senator, who recommended Banayo to President Noy, was reportedly so disappointed with his friend and political consultant he didn’t speak to Banayo during his term as NFA chief, according to my source in the Lacson camp.

He probably got a rebuke from the President for recommending Banayo.

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I have been a columnist since 1982 during the time of the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos.

I was a witness to the hypocrisy of many people.

Many street parliamentarians during the days of martial law who railed against corruption and abuse of power by the Marcoses are now themselves as corrupt and abusive, if not more, than the objects of their criticism.