September 29, 2015
Manila Bulletin (Mario Casayuran) | http://goo.gl/IvvsCX
To save the country’s neglected agricultural sector from unabated smuggling, the Senate opposition bloc is pushing for the swift passage of the proposed Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act.
This was stressed by Sen. Joseph Victor “JV’’ Ejercito, principal author of the measure (Senate Bill No. 2923), which is now on the second reading on the Senate floor.
“Our agricultural sector is currently in a neglected state. I fear that if we do not immediately curb agricultural smuggling and classify it as economic sabotage, this sector would soon crumble to a crisis,’’ Ejercito, chairman of the Senate economic affairs committee, said.
Ejercito lamented that the Philippine economy continues to be crippled by an estimated P200-billion annual loss in government revenues because of smuggling of agricultural products.
Senate action on the Ejercito bill followed the move by the Senate ways and means committee to modernize the country’s customs procedures through the passage by Congress of the proposed Customs Modernization and Tariff Act (CMTA).
The CMTA, sponsored by Sen. Juan Edgardo “Sonny’’ Angara, Senate ways and means committee chairman, seeks to align Philippine customs procedures with global best practices to stem unabated smuggling operations where government lost $277 billion in revenues due to technical smuggling in the last 51 years. Computed at P56 to one US dollar, the $277 billion is equivalent to P1.55 trillion.
The 157-page CMTA bill languished in Congress for almost a decade, Angara said.
Ejercito said the re-emergence of sugar smuggling at the port of Manila calls for swift passage of his measure.
Although he did not say it, Ejercito was probably referring to the controversial “visit’’ of former Land Transportation Office (LTO) chief Virginia Torres at the port of Manila where she inquired on the status of the P100-million sugar shipment of a friend which had been held by customs authorities.
The grave penalties of the measure such as classifying smuggling of agricultural products as economic sabotage would serve as a deterrence to “behind the scenes’’ negotiations at the Bureau of Customs, Ejercito said.
“It is high time for the government to support the livelihood of farmers and workers of the agricultural sector, which employs a third of the country’s labor force,’’ Ejercito said.