THE government is called to intensify and strengthen its actions toward agricultural smuggling in the country amid its continued proliferation that affects local producers and endangers consumers.
For the United Broiler Raisers Association (UBRA), importation and smuggling are responsible for reduced local chicken production.
“Smuggling, especially what we are seeing now being done openly without anyone being caught discourages local producers to the maximum,” UBRA chairman Gregorio San Diego said.
Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura (SINAG) likewise argued that misdeclaration andoutright smuggling continues to enter the country.
SINAG president Rosendo So said over the past six to eight weeks SINAG has been joining the counter intelligence team of the Department of Agriculture in various entry ports such as in Manila and Subic.
Unfortunately, operations still lead to the discovery of agricultural products being smuggled into the Philippines and data on the total volume of smuggled agricultural goods remain to be vague and incomplete given its illegal entry.
According to SINAG, however, about 10 to 30 percent more of what is usually being reported imports every year are smuggled.
This means that for every one million declared imports of various agricultural commodities, at least 100,000 and as much as 300,000 more are smuggled. Despite successfully smuggling goods into the country, the majority of importers are still getting away from it and are even doing the same thing repeatedly.
“The problem is that CMTA (Customs Modernization and Tariff Act) is the one being filed and not the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Law which is non-bailable,” said So.
“There should be people to be jailed for Anti-Agriculture Smuggling. Reports are meaningless unless they are actuallyimprisoned,” he said.
Further, So emphasized the need for the first border inspection to be in place in order to stop smuggling.
He added that smuggled goods pose a risk to consumers and could also endanger the local agriculture sector as they may be carriers of transboundary diseases since such products arrived without the necessary permits. “Every time smuggled goods are sold in the market, it does not pass through proper recording,” said So.
“If these continue to come in, this will affect our local production. This will affect our food security and food safety of our consumers,” he said.
San Diego, on the other hand, is no longer optimistic in terms of curbing smuggling in the country, especially as the situation just gets worse and worse.
“With the simple problem of onion prices and supply not being solved up to now, how can you be optimistic?” San Diego said.
With the current challenges hounding the agriculture sector, San Diego emphasized the need to finally appoint a point person in the department.
Right now, President Marcos concurrently sits as the Agriculture chief. “Appoint a permanent and responsible DA secretary who will consult and listen to stakeholders of the whole agri sectors on how to help Filipino farmers seriously,” San Diego said.
The Bureau of Customs earlier said that the unabated smuggling of agricultural commodities is due to the desire of importers to earn higher profits. It noted that any shortage in the market emboldens importers to bring in contraband commodities because of low supply and high demand which would translate to higher profit for them.
Last year, BOC conducted 107 seizures of agricultural products worth P1.23 billion. This is just part of the larger 671 total seizures of smuggled goods valued at P23.58 billion since January 2022.
Agricultural smuggling remains rampant in the country and this affects locally produced farm products since these cannot compete with illegally imported ones due to pricing.