AUTHORITIES have stepped up the Marcos administration’s campaign against hoarders and profiteers with the discovery on Monday of smuggled rice and sugar during a surprise inspection of a warehouse in Caloocan City.
Armed with a Letter of Authority (LOA), operatives of the Bureau of Customs swooped down on a warehouse at No. 306 Kabatuhan St. along Deparo Road in Caloocan City and stumbled on hundreds of bags of smuggled rice and sugar.
Customs personnel learned that the warehouse containing the contraband agricultural products is owned by Melissa Chua and Benito Chua.
It was not immediately known how the two Chuas are related.
Reports reaching the Office of the President said the Customs agents, who were exercising their visitorial power, had no choice but to forcibly open the warehouse after the owners and caretaker refused to cooperate with the BoC inspection team.
Aside from the tons of smuggled rice and sugar, BoC agents also seized the repacking machines which were being used to repack imported rice and sugar to make it appear that these were locally procured by the warehouse owners.
The relentless campaign of the Marcos government to bring down the price of sugar have resulted to the inspection of several warehouses in Luzon following intelligence reports that smuggled and/or hoarded sugar and other agricultural products were being kept in those warehouses.
Last Saturday, four warehouses in Guiguinto, Bulacan inspected by authorities yielded at least 60,000 bags of suspected hoarded sugar.
Armed with an LOA, a BoC inspection team visited four warehouses in T12 Polo Land, Ilang-Ilang street in Barangay Tabang, Guiguinto, Bulacan late Saturday afternoon.
Customs agents found imported sugar from Thailand in the warehouses at 50 kilograms per sack. At least two of the warehouses were half-full while one warehouse has sacks of sugar neatly stacked up to the roof.
Over the past few days, simultaneous operations were conducted by the BoC, the Sugar Regulatory Administration and the Department of Agriculture to inspect sugar warehouses in Deparo, Caloocan City; Balut in Tondo and San Nicolas in Manila; Rosales, Pangasinan; San Fernando, Pampanga; Ibaan, Batangas, and Davao.
The huge volume of sugar discovered by Customs agents in the various warehouses in Luzon has led Malacanang to conclude that the sugar shortage is artificial, brought about by the hoarding of sugar traders who wanted to rake-in huge profits from the sudden spike in sugar prices.
It can be recalled that Subic Port customs personnel have also seized 140,000 bags of imported sugar from Thailand equivalent to 7,000 metric tons.
The Customs Intelligence and Investigation Service (CIIS) has suspected that “recycled permit” was used in the Subic Port.
