MANILA, Philippines — President Marcos has approved the three-year food logistics action agenda of the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI), which seeks to ensure availability of affordable food, cut transport costs and address supply chain gaps.
The action agenda, which seeks to “revolutionize” the Philippines’ food distribution system, was approved during a sectoral meeting last Tuesday at Malacañang, the Presidential Communications Office (PCO) said yesterday.
“The action plan’s general objective is to ensure the availability, accessibility and affordability of food for Filipinos, and that consumers reliably get the right product at the right time,” PCO Secretary Cheloy Garafil said in a statement.
The agenda involves six trategies, including revolutionizing the country’s food distribution system; reducing transport and logistics costs; increasing investments in logistics infrastructure, transportation and storage and addressing other supply chain gaps.
It also aims to heighten enforcement measures against hoarding, smuggling and overstaying food imports and monitor warehouses or cold storage facilities and use information and communications technology to improve logistics performance.
The logistics action agenda is in line with Marcos’ goal to make the Philippines a logistics hub in Asia.
It was developed in collaboration with the agriculture, transportation, public works, interior and information and communications technology and other development partners.
The crafting of the agenda was one of Marcos’ directives during a Cabinet meeting in September last year, wherein he ordered agencies to develop a food logistics chain, cold chain industry, ports infrastructure and farm-to-market roads.
Garafil said the DTI has outlined efforts to integrate food terminals into the logistics framework by upgrading existing food terminals and building additional food hubs in Metro Manila and other areas.
“By integrating food terminals, the supply chain from producers to consumers could be shortened, with standardized logistical processes and transportation systems directed towards specific destinations,” she said.
“These hubs operate as central command centers for effectively supervising the balance between demand and supply, with the resulting synergy within these hubs amplifying the effectiveness of the action plan.”
Trade Secretary Alfredo Pascual said his agency has a pilot project with the Nueva Vizcaya Agricultural Terminal and the US Agency for International Development to strengthen private enterprises and assist small and medium enterprises transition to mature e-commerce businesses.
He said the project would help the agricultural terminal pivot from offline to online transactions, maximize the potential of e-commerce and increase market access for farmers’ produce.
The DTI is also pushing for the inclusion of logistics-related measures in the administration’s priority legislative agenda.
These bills include the proposed International Maritime Competitiveness Act, which seeks to empower the Maritime Industry Authority to regulate shipping lines and guard against excessive shipping charges.
Warehouses raided
Meanwhile, personnel of the Bureau of Customs (BOC) yesterday searched four warehouses in Bulacan that were reportedly used as storage facilities for P519 million worth of rice and palay believed smuggled from Vietnam and Pakistan.
BOC Commissioner Bienvenido Rubio identified three of the warehouses as Gold Rush Ricemill in Barangay San Juan, Balagtas town; JJS Rice Mill and Gold Rush Mill 2 both in Bocaue, Bulacan.
Present during the inspections were House Speaker Martin Romualdez, ACT-CIS Party-list Rep. Erwin Tulfo, Quezon Rep. Wilfrido Mark Enverga and Bulacan Rep. Ambrosio Cruz Jr.
The warehouses reportedly contained 154,000 sacks of imported rice worth P431 million and 60,000 sacks of palay worth P88 million.
“If the owners of these warehouses fail to show proper documents that they rightfully paid the taxes and duties they owe to the government, we will take immediate legal action and confiscate the items here,” Rubio said.
The warehouses were inspected almost a week after the inspection of three other warehouses in the same province on Aug. 24, which were also suspected to be storing illegally imported rice from Vietnam, Cambodia and Thailand.
The warehouses were temporarily padlocked and sealed as BOC examiners conduct inventory of the goods. – Evelyn Macairan, Ramon Efren Lazaro