Senator Joseph Victor “JV” Ejercito on Monday criticized the Department of Agriculture (DA), Sugar Regulatory Administration (SRA), and Bureau of Customs (BOC) for turning a blind eye on the worsening situation of agricultural smuggling in the country.
In a press conference, Ejercito slammed officials from these agencies saying they failed to fully implement the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act, which he principally authored.
“Now that this issue has become really important, it’s really about time that we look into these SRA officials, DA officials, BOC officials, doon sa mga talagang nagkulang. Di nga lang nagkulang, mukhang nagbulag-bulagan (those who were remiss in their duties. Not only remiss, it seems they acted oblivious to it),” Ejercito said.
“Sabi ko nga, mas magastos, mas mahal yung pampabulag. Mukhang tumitingin sila sa kabila. Alam naman natin na nangyayari, di ba (As I said, the methods of blinding is more expensive. They are looking the other way. We already know what happened, right)?” he added.
The lawmaker hinted on the possibility of filing charges against negligent agriculture officials in the past six years.
“Probably, we can already study the filing of charges against these officials who were remiss in their duties. Kumbaga, pinabayaan nila in the past six years (They were negligent in the past six years),” Ejercito said.
“Hindi naman siguro magkakaganito kalala ang problema ng ating agricultural industry had they done their jobs, kung talagang ginawa nila ang task nila (The problem won’t worsen this way if our agricultural industry had done their jobs, if they did their job),” he added.
Ejercito lamented that had the BOC been more active in detecting and apprehending agricultural smugglers, the country’s current woes with its sugar supply would have been avoided.
He said the BOC’s recent raids on warehouses containing hoarded sugar prove that the alleged sugar shortage in the country was engineered by agricultural hoarders.
“Probably, they are hoarding. Yung mga traders are hoarding these products intentionally para tumaas ang presyo (to increase prices),” he said.
Ejercito said he will urge his colleagues to strengthen the Senate’s oversight on the implementation of the country’s agricultural laws.
“I’m hoping that our oversight function will be established. It should be revived. Dapat maging active, para mabantayan ang mga batas na ito in line with the President’s direction or directive na dapat magkaroon ng food sufficiency (It must be active so we can guard the law in line with the President’s direction or directive that we should have food sufficiency),” he said.
The Senate Blue Ribbon Committee is expected to conduct its third hearing on the recent sugar importation mess on Tuesday, September 6.