SPEAKER Martin Romualdez yesterday assured the public that the Bureau of Customs (BOC) will conduct more surprise inspections of warehouses holding rice stocks in the government’s continuing bid to stop agricultural hoarding and price manipulation.
Romualdez thanked Customs Commissioner Bienvenido Rubio “for his initiative of peering into these suspicious warehouses at a time when Filipinos are grappling with rising prices of rice.”
“This will make hoarders think twice about their schemes,” he said. “These rice warehouse inspections won’t be a one-hit wonder. We need to carry out more of these inspections and I trust the commissioner to do so in order to keep rice traders obedient to the law.”
Last August 24, a contingent from the House led by Romualdez joined a BOC raid of different warehouses in Bulacan and found over 200,000 sacks of rice worth P505 million.
Before the day was over, the BOC, armed with letters of authority, barred the owners of the Great Harvest Rice Mill Warehouse, the San Pedro Warehouse, and the FS Rice Mill from retrieving the goods pending submission of the required documents on their rice importation.
The House leadership has vowed that the rice won’t go the way of onions, which reached absurd prices of over P700 per kilo.
“Shame on us, the officials in government, if we let that happen again, especially to our staple food,” said the Speaker, who has ordered the House committee on agriculture and food to probe the possible hoarding of rice to manipulate prices.
