THE House committee on agriculture and food yesterday cited in contempt two officials and a lawyer of a cold storage facility in Nueva Ecija for refusing to turn over to lawmakers their complete list of clients in the last quarter of 2022 when prices were skyrocketing because of alleged hoarding of supplies.
Cited in contempt and ordered detained at the Batasang Pambansa for at least 10 days were Argo Trading president and general manager Efren Zoleta Jr., operation manager John Patrick Sevilla, and their lawyer Jan Ryan Cruz.
Sevilla, who attended the hearing, was immediately detained but Zoleta and Cruz, who were both absent, were ordered arrested by the panel chaired by Quezon Rep. Mark Enverga.
Enverga said 35 out 49 members of the panel voted in favor of the motion of Rep. Rodante Marcoleta (PL, SAGIP) who slammed the three for what he said was their “outright lie.”
A vote of two-thirds of all members is required to cite a person in contempt under the House Rules.
“We have a facility here (at the Batasan). We will apply the full force of the rule: 10 days (in detention),” said Enverga, whose panel launched the probe on the orders of Speaker Martin Romualdez who has vowed to go after hoarders of agricultural products.
The panel also issued a subpoena for alleged big-time onion hoarder Leah Cruz who is also known as the “Sibuyas Queen” and another resource person, Ernesto Francisco, on the motion of Marikina Rep. Stella Quimbo.
Enverga said Cruz and Francisco both informed the panel that they could not attend the hearing because they had to be at the Sandiganbayan to attend a hearing, but the panel still decided to issue the subpoena to reiterate its demand for the two resource persons to participate in the next hearing.
On a separate motion made by Cavite Rep. Elpidio Barzaga Jr., the panel vowed to also cite Cruz and Francisco in contempt if they do not attend the next hearing.
Zoleta, Sevilla and Cruz were ordered detained after Sevilla insisted that he could not submit to the panel the names of clients during the last quarter of 2022 due to a confidentiality clause in their agreement.
Sevilla later agreed to reveal the names but provided limited information, prompting lawmakers to cite him and the two others in contempt for being evasive.
Lawmakers want accurate onion inventory figures to find out how hoarders operate and unmask them so that appropriate charges can be filed against them for their illegal activities.
Quimbo said what Sevilla provided were just a list of two onion depositors and the number of bags deposited. “There are no other details. No dates (of bags being deposited), no (dates of) withdrawals,” she said.
The senior vice chair of the committee on appropriations said what Sevilla provided was not “sufficient in form and substance” and was very different from those submitted by other cold storage facilities like WBI and Titan.
Sevilla asked the panel to reconsider its order, saying the hard copy of the service agreement he submitted did not contain a watermark “but in the soft copy that I sent it says strictly confidential.”
Quimbo said she went over the service agreement and “there is no clause on confidentiality on business information.”
Marcoleta said the copy submitted by Sevilla did not show any confidentiality clause and warned him and his lawyer “not to make excuses or your contempt charge will get worse.”
“Huwag niyo kaming gawing tanga dito. Gagawin ninyo kaming tanga rito (Don’t play us for fools here. You’re making us look like fools here),” he said. “Hindi kami tanga, ‘yung nilagay mong (we’re not fools, the thing you put there saying) ‘this is strictly confidential’ does not bind this committee.”
Romualdez backed the panel’s move to cite the three in contempt, saying it was “in accordance with the exercise of its mandate to pursue the congressional inquiry aimed at stopping price manipulation and hoarding to bring down the price of onions.”
The Speaker stressed that he and the House leadership would “not allow anyone to make a mockery of the hearings now being conducted by the Committee on Agriculture.”
“We expect every resource person invited to tell the truth. No more, no less. I advise those who are invited to the hearings: Magsabi lang po kayo ng totoo (Just tell the truth). Kung lolokohin lang ninyo ang committee, sa detention center ang bagsak ninyo (If you’ll try to fool the committee, you’ll end up in detention),” he said.
