Thursday, March 27, 2008 30 vans of imported rice held By Elias O. Baquero Sun.Star Staff Reporter
THE Bureau of Customs (BOC) yesterday held 30 more container vans of rice imported by the Philippine International Trading Corp. (PITC).
Since last week, the BOC has held 120 vans of rice imported by the PITC.
The alert order yesterday for the 30 container vans was signed by Jarius “Jake” Paguntalan, director of the Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service (CIIS), in behalf of Customs Commissioner Napoleon Morales.
There was no explanation why Paguntalan used the name of Morales in issuing the alert order when he himself is authorized to issue it. The alert order stated that the PITC rice shipments are subject for verification to identify the real owners.
National Food Authority (NFA) Cebu Provincial Manager Ramon Astilla, however, told Sun.Star Cebu that the PITC shipment is legal because the rice importation is covered by an NFA allocation.
“PITC rice shipments are legal. The NFA authorized PITC to import,” Astilla said.
Using NFA allocation, the PITC imports rice for farmers’ cooperatives.
An importer who asked not to be named said that if the alert order will not be lifted immediately, the farmers’ cooperatives will suffer losses in terms of demurrage and storage fees.
In in its recent shipment, Manuel Elima III, officer-in-charge of the PITC imports department, submitted a letter of guarantee to the shipping agency that the container vans will be returned with 72 hours from arrival.
With BOC holding the shipment, the farmers’ cooperative will have to pay additional storage fees, he said.
Alert orders cannot be lifted immediately because under the Tariff and Customs Code, this needs clearance from the commissioner.
Yesterday, the Grains Confederation of the Philippines (Grecon) confirmed that rice prices increased in the past weeks.
Grecon vice president Erwin Gok-ong said prices of all rice varieties increased. He said the price of the local brand Ganador increased from P1,400 to P1,600 per sack. Another local rice, Ivory, increased from P1,280 to P1,580 per sack.
Gok-ong said prices of imported Vietnam rice such as the Red Dragon and Red Cherry brands also increased from P1,080 to P1,550 per sack.
On the other hand, Gok-ong said the price of corn grits increased by 100 percent from P16 per kilo last January to P32 per kilo at present because of the scarcity of supply.
