1 million bags of ‘smuggled’ rice kept in ports

DAGUPAN CITY—An alliance of food producers is suing another judge for releasing 480 container vans of rice shipments that had been under the custody of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) in Manila.

Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (Sinag) has drawn up a petition against Judge Cicero Jurado of the Regional Trial Court in the National Capital Region for “knowingly rendering unjust judgment” by ordering the BOC to release rice shipments that were seized on suspicion that these were smuggled goods. The shipments belonged to a consignee identified as Danilo Galang.

Sinag’s action came after the Supreme Court last month stopped a Davao judge from enforcing an order allowing the release of confiscated rice imports.

Sinag said Jurado stopped customs officials on Jan. 16 from keeping the container vans. The group said the lawsuit would be filed on March 10 in the Supreme Court.

Rosendo So, Sinag president, said customs officials had been keeping over 2,000 container vans of rice in different ports due to legal questions about their importation.

In a telephone interview on Friday, So said these container vans were filled with a million bags of rice. Each van contains 500 bags of rice. “If each bag is sold at P1,800, that would be a whooping P1.8 billion [under government custody],” So said.

Sinag said customs officials had confiscated the 480 container vans, which were assigned to St. Hildegard Grains Enterprises. These shipments have no import permits from the National Food Authority, the group said.

On Feb. 4, Sinag sued Judge Emmanuel Carpio of the Davao Regional Trial Court for directing the BOC to release 167 seized vans with 83,500 cavans of rice to the owner, Joseph Mangupag Ngo, who was granted a writ of preliminary injunction on Dec. 12, 2013.

The shipment was brought into the country by Starcraft International Trading Corp. in September last year and was sold to Ngo.

It was seized in November last year when the Davao customs collector issued a hold order after it was found that the shipment had no import permit.

Sinag had complained to the Supreme Court that “by issuing the writ of preliminary injunction [to Ngo], the respondent exercised a power that he did not have and encroached upon the exclusive original jurisdiction of the collector of customs.”

Carpio’s 2013 decision said Ngo “has a clear right to an injunctive relief” because the Philippines lost its right to regulate importation with the expiration of its authority to control rice imports that was granted by the World Trade Organization (WTO). An injunctive relief is a court order prohibiting a party from a specific action.

The judge was referring to the WTO special treatment for rice covering 1995 to 2005. The WTO grants developing countries special treatments or special rights, which allow them time to improve their domestic industries before they fulfill their commitments to trade liberalization.

The Philippines’ special treatment for rice was extended to June 30, 2012, and has expired. The country has appealed for another extension until 2017.

So, in an earlier statement, said that even without quantitative restrictions, the importation of rice still had to be covered by permits for quarantine purposes.