Giving more teeth to RATS

Despite huge volumes of onions, rice, sugar, and other agricultural products the Bureau of Customs (BOC) supposedly interdicted, only nine cases have been filed so far against certain importers for violating the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Law. And all nine cases still remain pending in lower courts as of last check done by Senator Francis “Tol” Tolentino, chairman of the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee.

Tolentino and fellow Senators of the present 19th Congress have endorsed the repeal of Republic Act (RA) 10845, otherwise known as the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act of 2016. For obvious reasons, RA 10845 dismally failed to reduce, if not eliminate, the rampant smuggling of imported agricultural crops.

RA 10845 was enacted on May 23, 2016 for the purpose of protecting local agricultural industry and farmers from agricultural smuggling. Section 3 of RA 10845 already defined “large scale agricultural smuggling as economic sabotage” and set “a minimum amount of P1 million, or rice, with a minimum amount of P10 million as valued by the BOC.” It enumerated economic sabotage is committed through any of the following acts:

(a) Importing or bringing into the Philippines without the required import permit from the regulatory agencies;

(b) Using import permits of persons, natural or juridical, other than those specifically named in the permit;

(c) Using fake, fictitious or fraudulent import permits or shipping documents;

(d) Selling, lending, leasing, assigning, consenting or allowing the use of import permits of corporations, nongovernment organizations, associations, cooperatives, or single proprietorships by other persons;

(e) Misclassification, undervaluation or misdeclaration upon the filing of import entry and revenue declaration with the BOC in order to evade the payment of rightful taxes and duties due to the government;

(f) Organizing or using dummy corporations, nongovernment organizations, associations, cooperatives, or single proprietorships for the purpose of acquiring import permits;

(g) Transporting or storing the agricultural product subject to economic sabotage regardless of quantity; or

(h) Acting as broker of the violating importer.

But seven years after its enactment, the Senators found RA 10845 as wanting in enforcement.

Senators Tolentino and Cynthia Villar, who chairs the Senate committee on agriculture, food and agrarian reform, and the Senate committees on finance and the ways and means committee, have issued their Joint Committee Report last Sept. 4. They all recommended for plenary approval the repeal of RA 10845 and enactment of a new one. The Senators are pushing the passage of a new law that seeks to tighten the screw against smugglers, hoarders, profiteers, and cartels of agricultural products all rolled up into one.

Speaking in our Kapihan sa Manila Bay news forum last week, Tolentino expressed the Senate’s extreme disappointment on the dismal failure of RA 10845. But any laws for that matter could only work so much if the letter and spirit of these laws are properly executed and implemented.

It goes without saying the culprit is lack of vigor in the government agencies mandated to run after the smugglers, or RATS for short.

Established by the Customs Bureau in July 2005 and formally launched in 2006, the RATS program is mandated to detect and prosecute smugglers and other customs and tariff law violators. The BOC, currently headed by Commissioner Bienvenido Rubio, recently announced his agency’s seizure of various smuggled agricultural products and the filing of complaint before the Department of Justice (DOJ) against unscrupulous importers.

But we have yet to see who these smugglers are who have been jailed.

Produced at cheaper costs by farmers in neighboring countries – like China, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam, and elsewhere abroad – these agricultural crops are being continuously smuggled and sold here in our markets. While our Filipino farmers remain uncompetitive – dealing with higher costs of production from fertilizers to seeds and lack of irrigation – our domestic agriculture production and supply could not meet demand. This is not to mention crops destroyed by typhoons and the El Niño dry spell that further worsen the demand-and-supply situation.

Such dire situation keeps smugglers, hoarders, and profiteers very happy while creating artificial shortage of supply when there should be none.

Tolentino strongly pitched anew the immediate approval into law of a parallel legislation to create an Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Courts at the level of the Court of Appeals (CA). Tolentino, who also chairs the Senate Committee on Justice and Human Rights, cited official reports that only nine large-scale agricultural cases were filed in the courts between 2016 and February 2023. He agreed with the proposal submitted by the Philippine Judges Association to create a special court each in Bulacan, Manila, Cebu and Davao City whose primary function is to prosecute smugglers.

In the proposed new Agricultural Economic Sabotage Act, the following agricultural and fishery products will be covered, namely, rice, sugar, corn, beef, pork, poultry, dairy, garlic, onion, carrots, fruits, fish and other aquatic products, cruciferous vegetables, in their raw state or which have undergone the simple process of preparation or preservation for the market, and tobacco.

The proposed new law also calls for the creation of the Anti-Agricultural Economic Sabotage Council, to be chaired by the President, or his designated permanent representative: the Department of Agriculture; DOJ; Department of Trade and Industry; Department of Finance; Department of the Interior and Local Government; Department of Transportation (DOTr); the Anti-Money Laundering Council; the Philippine Competition Commission; and a representative each from the agricultural sectors.

Aside from giving more teeth to RATS, government officials and personnel abetting these criminals must be unmasked as part of whole of government campaign against agriculture economic saboteurs.