Wednesday, April 16, 2008 NBI to inspect all warehouses
THE National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) will inspect all warehouses in Central Visayas as part of a nationwide monitoring to curb rice hoarding.
Lawyer Reynaldo Esmeralda, NBI deputy director for Regional Operations, said the order for the inspection comes from Malacañang and that it will be carried out in coordination with the National Food Authority (NFA).
The NFA, Esmeralda said, has visitorial rights over all warehouses in the country. The authority, explained NBI 7 director Medardo de Lemos in a separate interview, emanates from Presidential Decree (PD) 4, the NFA Charter.
Instruction
It can be extended to the NBI because the law enforcement arm of the justice department has been deputized through a memorandum of agreement between ranking officials to implement the provisions of PD 4.
Esmeralda said his office is instructing all regional directors to identify all the warehouses in their respective jurisdictions.
De Lemos, who is also a lawyer, said he has yet to receive the order but said their office will comply.
He said information on the location of rice warehouses in Central Visayas can be secured from the NFA regional office.
He said all warehouse owners are legally bound to register their facilities with the NFA.
Complaint
When asked on his reaction on the prospect of working with the NFA, he said what he felt was “irrelevant” and that the directive issued by the NBI hierarchy must be carried out.
He refused to comment on the earlier snafu with the NFA - where the NBI, on the basis of an NFA certification, secured a search warrant to raid a warehouse in Mandaue City, only to be quashed and invalidated after the NFA issued another certification contradicting the earlier one.
As this developed, the NBI headquarters still has to decide on whether to proceed with the filing of a complaint against the management of the raided warehouse.
Esmeralda, who was in Cebu City for an office-related affair yesterday, said the matter has been endorsed to the NBI legal department.
“It is still being studied. We are waiting for their recommendation,” he told reporters.
The NBI earlier raided warehouse 52 of the North Central Castelex Compound in Mandaue City last April 2 on the basis of a search warrant Judge de Gracia issued.
The warrant, in turn, is premised on the April 1, 2008 certification the NFA issued to show that the warehouse management, represented by former Cebu Ports Authority general manager Mariano C.J. Martinez, did not possess a license for rice storage.
The warrant was quashed after a two-day hearing, with de Gracia citing how the NFA last April 3 issued another certification saying the warehouse did have a license under the name of businessman Regan King.
King’s supply of rice, estimated at 30,000 sacks, was found inside the warehouse when the NBI agents, accompanied by NFA representatives, raided it. (KNR)
