THE Bureau of Customs (BOC), acting on the order from Executive Secretary Atty. Victor Rodriguez, raided two warehouses in San Jose del Monte Bulacan on Wednesday and another warehouse the next day, Thursday, in San Fernando, Pampanga, suspected of hoarding sugar supply.
Armed with a ‘LOA’ (letter of authority) signed by acting commissioner Yogi Filemon Ruiz, BOC intelligence group officer-in-charge (OIC) and intelligence service (CIIS) director, Joeffrey Tacio, reported to Ruiz that with the help of local officials and the police and along with the Enforcement and Security Service (ESS), they first visited the warehouse along Kaypian Rd., Brgy. Kaypian, San Jose del Monte, Bulacan, based on derogatory information that it is storing hoarded sugar.
Tacio said they found an estimated 25,000 to 30,000 sacks of different kinds of sugar, purportedly “locally purchased,’ according to the warehouse owner, one ‘Victor Chua,’ who received a copy of the LOA.
Under RA 10863 or the Customs Modernization and Tariff Act (CMTA), the issuance of the LOA is a prerogative of the customs commissioner granting visitorial power to the agency to inspect warehouses and facilities suspected of storing smuggled goods or of committing other violations of the CMTA.
Tacio said they would give the owners of the sugar to present documents and other evidence on why they should not face prosecution and the sugar not forfeited in favor of the government.
The next day, in San Fernando City, BOC agents based at the Port of Clark and also armed with a LOA signed by Ruiz, inspected the ‘Lison Building’ that houses the New Public Market located in Bgy. Del Pilar, with the assistance of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, village officials and the police.
The operation was made on the order of Rodriguez, acting on a directive from President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., for the BOC to exercise its visitorial powers to all customs bonded warehouses and to check on the inventory of imported agricultural products with the aim of finding out if there is hoarding of sugar.
The initial field report reaching Tacio and Ruiz said found in the premises at the San Fernando warehouse were voluminous sacks of sugar from Thailand while hundreds more were found loaded inside delivery vans.
A Chinese-Filipino warehouse keeper identified as ‘Jimmy Ng’ received a copy of the LOA from the BOC agents who also found several imported items such as sacks of corn starch from China, sacks of imported flour, plastic products, oil in plastic barrels, motorcycle parts and wheels of different brands, helmets, LED Televisions sets and paints.
Tacio said the warehouse owners are being given 15 days to present the necessary documents to prove that the items were legally imported into the country.
In both operations, the BOC said they discovered a total of 44,000 sacks of suspected smuggled and hoarded sugar valued at more than P220 million.
“The BoC’s Pampanga sugar warehouse raid may very well serve as a warning to unscrupulous traders who are currently hoarding their stocks of sugar in order to profit from the current artificial sugar shortage situation,” Rodriguez said in a statement released by the Palace.
Rodriguez bared that his office is investigating reports that the importation of 300,000 metric tons of sugar was being pushed aggressively by “certain traders” who intend to use it as a ‘cover’ for them to release the sugar they had hoarded but they could not release as this would depress prices.
Rodriguez had earlier alerted PBBM on the controversial ‘Sugar Order No. 4,’ signed by disgraced Department of Agriculture (DA) undersecretary, Leocadio Sebastian and the Sugar Regulatory Board, last August 9, authorizing the importation of 300,000 metric tons of sugar.
The issuance of SO-4 has not been authorized by PBBM, who is also the concurrent DA secretary.
But reports reaching Rodriguez disclosed that such massive importation of sugar could result in windfall profits for the traders involved in the release of SO-4 of at least P300 million with a portion of the amount earmarked as “lobby money.”
Sebastian and the two other members of the SRB, Roland Beltran and SRA administrator, Hermenegildo Serafica, had since resigned amidst the brouhaha surrounding SO-4.
In a letter to Serafica dated August 13, 2022, Rodriguez told Serafica that PBBM has accepted his resignation “effective immediately.”
Deeper probe; more raids
A customs official who declined to be named for the moment, said they are set to conduct another “visit” in another warehouse in San Jose Del Monte, after “information on the ground” revealed that it was also allegedly storing “hoarded sugar.”
The source said they are just waiting for the LOA to be issued by Ruiz.
Still acting on the instruction of Rodriguez, sources in the intelligence community said they are now also probing “indications” that the warehouse in Pampanga had long been smuggling sugar from Thailand, repacking them and then sold as “local sugar.”
The sources said the modus was indicated by old sacks of Thailand sugar they found in the premises but were not properly disposed.
The initial report reaching the BOC concluded that the sacks of sugar “appeared old dusty, evidenced of its prolong storage/hoarding (presumably) to dictate the market prices of sugar.”
“Further, contents of imported smuggled sugar (as evidenced by the remnants of found dirty sacks) were repacked, claimed as local(ly) purchased and sold to the market,” the report further added (updated, August 18, 2022; 4:10 pm).