Bicol Saro Party-list Rep. Brian Raymund Yamsuan (Facebook)

Amid rising prices of rice, a neophyte congressman filed a bill that would brand as "economic sabotage" under certain circumstances the hoarding of rice and corn. 

Lodged before the House of Representatives by Bicol Saro Party-list Rep. Brian Raymund Yamsuan was House Bill (HB) no.7970, which seeks to amend Republic Act (RA) No.7581 or the 31-year-old Price Act. 

Yamsuan said the law must be updated to punish hoarders and profiteers of rice and corn with harsher penalties, including imprisonment of up to 40 years in certain instances. 

“One of the reasons greedy and shameless traders are bold enough to hoard rice or corn even during difficult times is that the punishment imposed on them under the law is not harsh enough. We need to amend the outdated Price Act to ensure that the penalties remain commensurate to the crimes committed, and include other acts and practices that should be deemed illegal but not covered under this law,” he explained. 

The bill, which Yamsuan filed together with Camarines Sur 2nd district Rep. LRay Villafuerte, seeks the creation of an anti-rice or corn hoarding and profiteering task force in every province, city and municipality. It will regularly check the inventory levels of all mills, warehouses, and stock houses of rice and corn to find out if these commodities are being hoarded.  

Under the measure, the hoarding of rice and corn “during or on the occasion of any calamity, disaster, or any emergency declared as such by the President” shall be deemed equivalent to economic sabotage and punishable by reclusion perpetua, which means imprisonment of 20 to 40 years and eligibility for pardon after 30 years.  

Criminal liability under the bill “shall attach to the persons with direct supervision and control of such establishments” where hoarding of rice or corn has been determined during times of emergency, disaster or calamity. These include the respective presidents, chief operating officers or managers of the establishments. 

The hoarding and profiteering of rice and corn in other circumstances is punishable under the bill by imprisonment of 10 to 20 years, plus a fine of  P100,000 to P5 million.  

“By creating an artificial shortage of rice and corn, the costs of the same shoot up, there is panic buying in the markets, government agencies are under fire for allegations of corruption and mismanagement, poor Filipino families cannot afford these basic commodities and many go hungry. In sum, it is a dangerous crime that may potentially sabotage the economy and render our people desperate and hungry,” the authors said. 

“We have to make rice and corn hoarders answerable under the law,”  they added.  

Hoarded rice or corn stocks shall be confiscated and forfeited in favor of the government, the bill also states.  

Under HB 7970, the definition of hoarding has been expanded from merely being “undue accumulation” to “storage or possession” of any basic commodity or prime commodity beyond normal inventory levels “as determined by the implementing agency concerned", which is the Department of Agriculture (DA) in the case of rice and corn.  

Prima facie evidence of hoarding is present under the bill when a trader or any person has stocks that is 50 percent higher than his or her usual inventory, and refuses or fails to sell these to the public, or make such stocks “available in the regular channels of production, trade, commerce and industry". 

“In the case of rice or corn, a person’s usual inventory  thereof shall be reckoned from the month immediately preceding before the discovery of the stocks respective of the date/time he started his business,” the bill stated.