President-elect Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has vowed to prosecute all personalities involved in agricultural smuggling in the country, as he had also named himself the head of the Department of Agriculture while searching for its next Secretary.
In a speech in Cebu City on Tuesday night during the inauguration of the winning officials of the One Cebu party, Marcos said: “We’re going to run after them. Hahabulin natin sila (we will pursue them).”
This was after he received a copy of the 63-page report of the Senate Committee of the Whole (COW) from outgoing Senate President Vicente Sotto III—who then said he would uncover all about what lawmakers knew about agricultural smuggling in the country.
Sotto said this was if the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency (NICA) continued to deny it supplied senators with a list of 22 suspected smugglers and protectors of the illegal practice.
“You do not just object to the Senate committee report because if they do that, I would be constrained to reveal everything,” Sotto said Wednesday, warning NICA officials led by Director Edsel Batalla to “just shut up” if they still chose to deny they were the ones who provided the list to lawmakers.
Apart from giving Marcos Jr.—who also served as Senator with Sotto from 2010 to 2016 —a copy of the report, the Senate President said they also remitted it to the Ombudsman for it to investigate further.
“Gave a copy to the Office of the Ombudsman. It’s their job to investigate and file necessary charges,” Sotto, who is stepping down as Senate President today, said in a text message to reporters.
This developed as two more ranking officials of the Bureau of Customs, who were among the personalities mentioned in the Senate committee report released Monday, denied their involvement in the multibillion-peso anomaly, and called the list “malicious and false.”
Vener Baquiran, Customs Deputy Commissioner for Revenue Collection Monitoring Group, and Yasser Abbas, director of the BOC Imports and Assessment Service, said the bureau “will not be deterred by these allegations and will continue its unwavering commitment to run after unscrupulous individuals and to protect the welfare of the local farmers.”
Their boss, Customs Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero, reiterated in a statement that the bureau under his watch was able to seize P2.5 billion worth of smuggled agricultural products over the last six years.
The bureau also filed hundreds of cases against suspects before the Department of Justice and revoked the accreditation of 84 suspected importers and customs brokers since 2019, Guerrero said.
“If we really have involvement in this, then file charges against us, so we can defend ourselves,” the former Army general added in a television interview while expressing his dismay over the development.
Navotas City Mayor Toby Tiangco, one of the local executives named on the Senate list, on Wednesday said an order issued by the Department of Agriculture was being used to cover up fish smuggling of fish in the country.
“They are covering up the imported fish through the) permit issued because of that special order,” Tiangco said in a Dobol B TV interview.
He was referring to Department Special Order No. 1077, which revoked Special Order No. 1202, which prohibits the importation of galunggong, mackerel, moonfish, and squid for processing purposes.
Meanwhile, the Federation of Free Farmers (FFF) urged the incoming Marcos administration to stop the rampant undervaluation and misdeclaration of farm commodity imports, as it conducts its probe.
“It is very possible that revenue foregone from undervaluation and misdeclaration equals—if not exceeds—the losses from outright smuggling,” said FFF national manager Raul Montemayor.
“It is also easier to plug loopholes and prevent importers’ undervaluation and misdeclaration than to run after smugglers,” he added in a statement.
For rice alone, the FFF estimated the cumulative shortfall in tariff collections at almost P12 billion since the Rice Tariffication Law (RTL) liberalized rice importation in 2019.
In a radio interview, Sotto said he sent to the Ombudsman not only the list but the entire committee report, including the committee’s recommendation on who should be charged for the alleged smuggling.
NICA’s Batalla had denied the names of suspected smugglers and protectors mentioned in the Senate COW were not from their agency, after two senators criticized them over the rawness of the information they had disclosed to the Senate panel. (See full story online at manilastandard.net)
Sotto, who spearheaded the smuggling probe with Sen. Panfilo Lacson, stressed he has the records of the NICA officials’ visit to his office, where they supposedly disclosed the information to him.
Sotto said he conducted the Senate hearings three or four times and remembered a Task Force from the DA and the Department of Trade and Industry told the committee they were investigating people linked to vegetable smuggling and other crimes.
When he inquired who these people were, Sotto said he was initially given four names.
“I told them, are these the only ones? And they said no, since there are many others,” Sotto said.
“If I wasn’t mistaken, Director Batalla was there in the hearing. They said they know… they’re investigating. So, I told them to give me the names of those involved so we can file this with the Ombudsman, we can include them in our committee report.”
The NICA, the veteran lawmaker said, at first told him they can give him the names in an executive session. “Later, I told them to give it to me even in private,” Sotto said.
After a few weeks of hearing, Sotto said the NICA group met him. “Just about that time, what we talked about, I was telling them that I will submit to the comrep (committee report), I will not say where they came from… That was the deal. They request if that could be so,” the Senate President added.
The Senate report was based on an intelligence report received by Sotto on May 17, 2022 containing a “validated list” of persons purportedly involved in the illegal importation of agricultural products.
BOC’s Baquiran, in denouncing his inclusion on the Senate list, said: “I have attended all Senate hearings and submitted all the required information to assist the Committee in their inquiry. In all these hearings, no wrong was ever imputed against me.”
“In fact, the BOC furnished the Committee all required reports that readily showed that from 2016 to present, 111 criminal complaints involving 270 counts of violations relative to agricultural smuggling, were filed before the Department of Justice. Remarkably, 73 of which, involving 232 counts of violations, were filed during my tenure,” he added.
Abbas, a lawyer like Baquiran, said his functions as the BOC’s Director of the Import and Assessment Service “are not involved in any manner in the processing, clearance or release of agricultural products.”
“The functions of my office do not allow me to influence or facilitate the processing of agricultural products to allow smuggling,” he said.
“Furthermore, I was not invited to any hearing in the Senate regarding the smuggling of agricultural products, nor was I even given a chance to explain any allegations against me, if any. In fact, my name was never mentioned in any of the Senate hearings on agricultural smuggling,” Abbas added.
Guerrero, who was appointed by outgoing President Rodrigo Duterte to lead the Customs bureau in 2018, vehemently denied the accusations and denounced the supposed “validated” list presented to the Senate Committee of the Whole.
“Law enforcement agencies such as the National Intelligence Coordinating Agency, the Armed Forces of the Philippines, and the Philippine National Police denied the release or submission of any Intelligence Report from their respective agencies allegedly implicating any BOC official in any smuggling activity,” he said.