Bureau of Customs to seize P500-M ‘hot’ rice

FIRST SALVO Customs Commissioner Ruffy Biazon (left) inspects part of the 90 40-foot containers loaded with illegally imported rice from Vietnam worth P42.5 million at the Subic Bay Freeport on Friday. Biazon said Bureau of Customs was about to confiscate a much bigger shipment of rice from India worth P500 million also at the Subic Freeport. NIÑO JESUS ORBETA

With the Bureau of Customs (BOC) on the verge of chalking up one of its biggest hauls of smuggled goods next week, Customs Commissioner Rufino Biazon on Tuesday said there was “increasing pressure” on him to release the rice imported from India worth close to P500 million.

The shipment was found in nearly a thousand containers at the Subic Bay Freeport.

“It’s been an effort just to resist all these pressures over the last two to three months, but we are determined to finalize the seizure of this big haul next week. We will not let this slip from our hands,” Biazon said in a phone interview.

He said rice smuggling was a direct attack on the President’s vision of achieving rice sufficiency during his term.

No claimant

Biazon said the BOC would formalize its seizure of about 430,000 50-kilogram sacks of rice that were abandoned at Subic Bay Freeport in Zambales province in April. The rice has an estimated market value of P450 million.

With the BOC questioning the arrival of the shipment without the mandatory documents, Biazon said nobody came forward to claim it within the 30-day period for filing an entry.

He said the BOC and the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority had to wait between 60 days and 90 days before they could formally seize the abandoned smuggled goods.

“I had to go to Subic to see for myself how huge the shipment was. There were a lot of ‘interested people’ trying to contact me and other BOC officials because they wanted to save the goods from forfeiture. There has been increasing pressure while we waited through the waiting period. But we are ready to make a formal seizure next week,” Biazon said.

Ploy

He said the pressure groups were claiming that the shipment was not for domestic consumption as it was destined for Indonesia. “We rejected outright their ploy,” he said.

The confiscation of the smuggled rice from India comes on the heels of the BOC’s seizure of 90 containers of smuggled rice from Vietnam.

Lure of profit

Just like the India shipment, Biazon said the Vietnam rice was packed in 50-kg bags, which led him to believe that they were meant to be sold in grocery stores.

“Rice smuggling is continuing because of the lure of profit,” he said.

Biazon said stopping rice smuggling was a top priority under his watch because of the politically sensitive nature of the staple.

He said the antismuggling drive would complement the President’s drive to boost rice production in the country.

In his third State of the Nation Address on Monday, Mr. Aquino recognized the importance of agriculture growth and development in his administration’s drive to make the Philippines a rice exporter.

Shortage

“For so long in the past, we were led to believe that we were short of 1.3 million metric tons of rice, and that we needed to import 2 million metric tons to address this shortage. They ordered rice like it was unlimited—but because we had exceeded far more than what we needed, imported rice went to rot in the warehouses,” the President said.

“In just our first year, we reduced the annual shortage of 1.3 million metric tons to just 860,000 metric tons. This year, it is down to 500,000—including a buffer stock to dip into in times of calamity. And, if the weather cooperates, we’ll be able to export rice next year,” he added.