Monday, April 21, 2008 Mongaya: PASG vigilance By Anol Mongaya Panahom
THE Presidential Anti-Smuggling Group (PASG) has not been sleeping all the while. Cebu PASG operatives together with police agents raided a firm owned by Koreans the other day and netted 18 allegedly smuggled vehicles.
The vehicles allegedly had plates assigned to other vehicles. Obviously, the vehicles at the said Korean firm had arrived in Cebu for some time now.
Incidentally, only PASG men received invitations to the coming congressional inquiry hearing on alleged car smuggling in Cebu on April 23. I gathered that if ever PASG Chief Antonio Villar finally decides to appear in the congressional hearing, he will have to parry criticisms from several congressmen.
Still, it would be best if he faces his accusers in Congress.
Meanwhile, this recent operation against local smugglers should make local smugglers think twice about additional “trabaho.”
All I can say is that operations against smugglers should be accurate so as not to discourage legitimate shipments. Law enforcement units must learn how to effectively wield their powers so as not to hit legitimate cargoes like what the National Bureau of Investigation (NBI) and the National Food Agency (NFA) did with a recent rice shipment.
According to Bureau of Customs sources, revenue collections have bounced back despite intensified operations against smugglers. This should tell us that many legitimate businessmen have regained confidence on government and are now beginning to pour in investment money.
Still, observers believe various port stakeholders need to put their acts together to take full advantage of the strong peso in stirring additional importations.
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Because of the rice crisis, I agree that government should make it easier and cheaper for importers to bring in rice cargoes to the country. This should discourage smuggling while stirring additional legitimate imports. Agricultural solutions, though necessary, will take time. Rice imports are the immediate solution.
Still, I believe the sustainable solution is improvement of rice technology that will make it profitable for farmers to plant rice and make them think twice about selling their land to developers or planting cash crops. Overreliance on rice imports will make us vulnerable to the ups and downs of the world market. It won’t guarantee food security.
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Many are dissatisfied with the investigation results of the Vicente Sotto Memorial Medical Center (VSMMC) for falling short of naming names involved in that fateful operation that became a YouTube hit.
I like to give hospital officials the benefit of the doubt though in redeeming its reputation as a result of this sordid incident. I understand that the investigation was ordered way before the incident hit the headlines. Insiders say hospital officials are taking the investigation and the need for internal disciplinary actions seriously.
I gathered that the investigation quietly got underway right after somebody first uploaded a video of the operation in January but was withdrawn after a few days. Unfortunately, somebody else uploaded another copy of the video. This time, it stirred the hornet’s net. And various sectors are now asking for blood.
Meanwhile, I’m quite curious why the victim is not going after the guy who started the controversy by placing the perfume spray canister inside his anus in the first place. Have they patched up their quarrel already? I don’t quite buy the excuse that the victim could not anymore remember whom he dated last Dec. 31.
It seems the guy is getting it easy while the medical personnel who safely removed the canister without any hitch to the patient’s health will get the axe. After all, the YouTube video did not show the patient’s face but instead that of the medical personnel present.
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Members of the Salcon Power Independent Union (SPIU) should not assume that the public will readily side with their cause in calling for a strike in a vital power facility. They are after all not ordinary workers but professionals earning much more than ordinary wage earners in Cebu. They are not like oppressed workers earning starvation wages. From where I sit, the union needs to explain their side to the public.
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