The Department of Agriculture (DA) said on Tuesday 25 metric tons of smuggled red onions worth P2 million have been intercepted by its Bureau of Plant Industry (BPI) and with the Bureau of Customs (BOC) in Misamis Oriental.
The shipment with an estimated customs value of around P2 million was discovered at the Mindanao International Container Terminal in Misamis Oriental on June 11, the DA said in a statement.
The agency said the cargo first arrived on May 26, and was declared to contain various frozen goods such as egg noodles, croissant dough, pizza dough, buns and spring rolls.
The shipment was consigned to Lantix Consumer Goods Trading, a company based in Binondo, Manila, a report submitted to BPI Director Glenn Gerard Panganiban by Arnold dela Cruz, officer-in-charge of the Northern Mindanao’s Plant Quarantine Service, showed.
However, the BPI-Plant Quarantine Service in Cagayan de Oro, acted on a derogatory information it received later, and requested the BOC to withhold the release of the container van for further inspection.
The DA said that physical inspection conducted on June 11 revealed that the shipment contained fresh red onions, not the items listed in the ship’s manifest.
Following the discovery, the assigned BOC examiner recommended the seizure and confiscation of the shipment.
Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. added the DA has not issued any sanitary and phytosanitary import permits for red onion shipments from China.
He said the government will pursue legal action under the newly enacted Anti-Agricultural Economic Sabotage Act, which would impose heavier penalties on those found guilty of agricultural smuggling, including substantial fines and extended prison terms.
“We intend to go after these unscrupulous traders with the full force of the law,” Tiu Laurel further said in the DA statement.
The DA did not elaborate on possible penalties against the company behind the shipment but the harshest penalties provided by the Anti-Agricultural Economic Sabotage Act include life imprisonment and a fine five times the value of the agricultural and fishery products.
Based on the DA’s monitoring of public markets in the National Capital Region on Monday, June 23, the price of local red onion was at P100 to P170 per kilogram while local white onion was at P70 to P150 per kg.
