The Bureau of Customs (BOC). FILE PHOTO
MANILA, Philippines — The head of the Bureau of Customs vowed on Thursday to go after rice smugglers and corrupt BOC personnel, as well as put more teeth to the agency’s campaign against the smuggling of agricultural products.
Emerging from a meeting at the Customs headquarters in Port Area, Manila, with leaders of various agricultural groups from Southern Tagalog and Central Luzon, Commissioner John Phillip Sevilla said all those involved in rice smuggling would be investigated and prosecuted.
“The fight isn’t over yet. A lot of things still need to be done. We will do our best to stop smuggling not just of rice but also other agricultural products,” Sevilla said.
The former finance undersecretary also told his visitors “we will be your partners and you can trust us.”
In the BOC’s intensified drive against smuggling, Sevilla said they would “be needing the help of other organizations in both the public and private sectors.”
Ernesto Ordoñez, chair of the group Alyansa Agrikultura (AA), and Jaime Tadeo, member of the National Rice Farmers Council, both said they were “happy with the outcome” of their dialogue with the new Customs chief.
“We asked Commissioner Sevilla for swift action against rampant rice smuggling in the country. We’re happy because he committed to investigate and prosecute immediately the suspected smugglers and corrupt Customs personnel who connived with them,” said Ordoñez, also a former trade undersecretary and currently an Inquirer columnist.
Earlier in a press statement, the AA said the government had lost over P882 billion in revenues during the period 2004 to 2012 due to smuggling of agricultural products.
Tadeo said they “believe in the sincerity of the new Customs administration in solving the rice smuggling problem, as well as cleaning up the bureau.”
He called their dialogue with Sevilla a “good start in our joint fight against rice smuggling.”
During their hour-long meeting, representatives of the hog, poultry, fisheries and vegetable sectors asked the BOC head to include their groups in the bureau’s anti-smuggling campaign.
The Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (Sinag) said the government has suffered about P64 billion in foregone revenues as a result of the rampant smuggling of rice, vegetables, meat and other agricultural products.
The group of farm producers placed the forgone revenue at P32 billion in 2012 and at almost the same amount last year.
Rosendo So, a director of Titan Agricultural Products and Sinag president, explained that the estimates of government losses from smuggling were based on a comparison of export data released by other countries and the import data reported by the government.
Earlier, he claimed that businessman “David Tan,” the alleged Goliath of rice smuggling in the country, was costing the government at least P7 billion in forgone duties every year and massive opportunity losses for local farmers whose palay production are being shunned by rice millers who prefer to buy smuggled rice already packed in 50-kilo sacks.
Revenue losses from smuggling and other problems like tax evasion and inefficiency in tax collection are blamed largely for the administration’s budget deficit, which stood at P242 billion in 2012.