THE government is now scrutinizing rice importation players, including farmers’ cooperatives, as authorities seek to fully realize the benefits of the rice trade liberalization (RTL) law.
High-ranking officials interviewed by the BusinessMirror disclosed that parallel investigations have been launched by different agencies to ensure the proper implementation of the RTL law.
Finance Assistant Secretary Antonio Joselito Lambino II said the Department of Finance (DOF) is closely monitoring revenue collections from rice-related transactions, particularly importation. This, Lambino noted, includes income taxes and tariff collections.
The finance department is doing this to ensure that rice tariffs are properly collected, especially since they are vital to bankroll the government’s interventions to improve local farmers’ productivity.
Under the RTL law, tariffs in excess of P10 billion will be given directly to farmers.
On the aspect of income taxes, the Bureau of Internal Revenue (BIR), an attached agency of the DOF, recently padlocked 11 warehouses in Guiguinto, Bulacan, for various tax violations, including non-registration and failure to pay the annual registration fees.
This includes not having any permits to have a warehouse.
Lambino said six of the 11 warehouses had rice stocks and after the raid, the BIR found a total of 410,040 kilograms of rice, mostly imported from Vietnam and Myanmar. As of this week, he said, the BIR reported that the warehouses were unable to present any import documents to explain the amount of rice stored in the shuttered facilities.
“The tax registration of the warehouse was the primary motivation for the raid. But because [the warehouses] contained rice, we checked the import status, [this being] imported rice. As of a few days ago, I checked, they were unable to present import documents,” Lambino said.
Lambino explained that the operations that DOF-attached agencies conducted recently were in coordination with the Bureau of Customs and the Department of Agriculture (DA), particularly the Bureau of Plant industry (BPI).
Authorities found out, he said, that the imported rice stored in the padlocked warehouses did not have any sanitary and phytosanitary import clearance (SPS-IC), which is a prerequisite for any rice importation.
Lambino said the DOF supports the recent move of the Philippine Competition Commission (PCC) and the DA to start investigating rice traders in general.
Recently, the DA forged a memorandum of agreement with the PCC to closely work together against smuggling of agricultural products and other illegal trade practices.
This will be in the forms of information exchange, investigation and enforcement, and pushing for action plans through shared resources to limit and put a stop to anti-competitive practices.
DA’s CREST-O
Last week, the DA said it has formed a “unified and integrated regulatory enforcement unit” that would address unlawful trade of agriculture and fisheries products in the country.
The anti-smuggling unit called Compliance and Regulatory Enforcement for Security and Trade Office (CREST-O) was able to seized about 11,660 metric tons of smuggled rice stored at UPFC Logistics Corp. warehouse in Guiguinto, Bulacan.
The smuggled rice entered the country through a so-called phantom port in Pampanga, the DA said.
The DA added that the shipments were linked to five Cooperative Development Authority-registered cooperatives.
“DA CREST-O is currently checking the records of five Cooperative Development Authority-registered cooperatives that were reported to have been issued sanitary phytosanitary import clearance by the Bureau of Plant Industry,” it said.
“It will be recalled that during the DOF-BIR Inspection of some 11 warehouses on October 3, one of the business establishments that was reported to be operating without the necessary permits from the BIR was UPFC Logistic Corp.,” it added.
The DA said they are now digging deeper into the “mysterious importation of rice through the phantom port in Pampanga.”
This story is related to the BusinessMirror’s Broader Look today that reviews the involvement of rice cooperatives in rice importation especially after the government liberalized the industry.
Image credits: CEASAR M. PERANTE