EDITORIAL - The problem with rice smuggling is not rice

In a press conference in Cebu last week, Senator JV Ejercito said he felt he knew how to solve the problem of rice smuggling in the country, and that is to restore to the National Food Authority the sole power to import rice and other grains.

Ejercito, as well as several others, has correctly seen that the policy of allowing farmers, bunched into cooperatives, could boomerang and do more harm to them than the good as originally envisioned. For one, as is clearly happening now, farmer coops lack funds and end up selling the permits to smugglers.

The policy was resorted to as a means to help farmers continue earning during crop failures, although the real culprit is the lack of government support for long term sustainable agriculture. Providing farmers with temporary short term assistance is just a band aid solution that, as we now see, has miserbale failed.

But while there is sense in the Ejercito proposal to restore to the NFA the sole power to import rice, prudence dictates that we should not rush into adopting the proposal. We must remember that the NFA at one time already enjoyed solo authority to import rice but that didn't deter rice smugglers from operating.

The real problem with rice smuggling is that people have focused their attention on rice and not the smuggling. By focusing on the rice, we are detracted by such factors as who gets to have or not to have sole authority to import rice.

The focus should be on the smuggling because that is the real problem. What is being smuggled -- be it rice, cars, appliances, drugs -- is just circumstantial. Smuggling is born of the need to cheat on duties in order to make a killing in profits. What is being smuggled is immaterial.

In other words, it does not matter who gets to have sole authority to smuggle rice or whatever. For as long as the smugglers remain free to do their thing, smuggling will remain a problem and it will not be long before the smugglers find a way to dance around the NFA.

Without smugglers there will be smuggling, whether of rice or whatever else. So focus on the smuggling and not on what is being smuggled. If rice smuggling gets too hot, the smugglers can always shift to other things and we continue to lose just the same. To get the smugglers, government knows who to run after.