Jasper Emmanuel Arcalas – The Philippine Star 

Workers unload sacks of rice from a delivery truck along Dagupan Street in Tondo, Manila on January 22, 2024.

MANILA, Philippines — The Department of Agriculture (DA) is pushing for the restoration of its powers to register, monitor and visit rice warehouses and retailers to boost its surveillance capacity and curb smuggling of the staple.

The DA is seeking to be given registration and monitoring functions of the local rice industry as part of the proposed amendments to the rice tariffication law (RTL).

Agriculture officials noted that such powers were stripped away from the National Food Authority (NFA) with the enactment of RTL in 2019.

But this time, the department wants the said powers instead of being given to the NFA.

Prior to the passage of RTL, the NFA oversaw the entire rice trade regime of the country, from the registration of grain retailers, monitoring of rice warehouses to accreditation of traders and importers.

Under its proposal, the DA is seeking a mandatory registration of all rice mills, grain warehouses, drying facilities, retail outlets and all other related establishments.

More so, the DA wants to have visitorial powers to inspect the registered establishments if they are compliant with existing food safety standards and regulations.

The heightened surveillance of the rice-related entities will also allow the department to collect and analyze pertinent data to rice that are not limited to supply, inventory and trading activities for its policy-making decisions.

Agriculture Undersecretary Asis Perez said the DA is currently “blind” in terms of the magnitude of the current rice industry post-RTL.

“We do not know how many rice mills we have or even who the rice retailers are. There is no list,” Perez said in a recent roundtable discussion organized by the American Chamber of Commerce of the Philippines Inc.

Perez pointed out that the powers that the DA is seeking is not meant to “police” the rice trade industry but to allow the department to effectively perform its regulatory functions in relation to food safety.

If Congress and President Marcos approved the proposal as part of the amendments to RTL, then it would allow the DA to effectively fulfill its mandate under the proposed Anti-Agricultural Economic Sabotage Act, Agriculture Assistant Secretary Arnel de Mesa said.

The proposed legislative measure repeals Republic Act 10845 or the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act and introduces severe penalties for smuggling, hoarding, profiteering and forming cartels of agricultural and fishery products.

“If we have the visitorial powers we will be able to see the level of (rice) supplies. If they import rice we will know where it went and where is also the local production being stored,” De Mesa said.

“We lack the data that supposedly we should have,” De Mesa added.

Under the proposed Anti-Agricultural Economic Sabotage Act, large-scale agricultural smuggling will be considered economic sabotage, which carries severe sanctions.

Published Date: July 16, 2024