Give all smuggled rice to Yolanda victims, government told

DAVAO CITY—The leader of a farmers and irrigators’ coalition, Sinag, called on the government to donate all smuggled rice to survivors of Supertyphoon “Yolanda” amid reports that over 200,000 sacks of smuggled rice have again reached the Davao port.

Rosendo So, chair of the Abono party-list group and head of the group Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (Sinag), said the government should directly donate and distribute the seized “hot” rice to Yolanda survivors instead of auctioning it off.

“If they auction it off, these smugglers might just buy the rice back,” he said in a statement sent to the Inquirer.

“These should be given instead to the survivors of the typhoon,” he added as he urged the government to step up its campaign against the entry of smuggled rice.

He said some 200,000 sacks of smuggled rice had reached the Davao port.

“This is alarming,” So said. “Smuggled rice continues to enter the country.”

So said the Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Customs had seized 403 container vans of smuggled rice in Davao last month.

He said there was no reason for rice prices to rise since the P2.5 million worth of damage that Yolanda wrought on rice fields in the Visayas is minimal. Germelina Lacorte, Inquirer Mindanao