Sen. Villar on legalizing rice smuggling: It ‘is economic sabotage’

Senator Cynthia Villar on Thursday slammed the idea of legalizing rice smuggling in the Zamboanga-Basilan-Sulu-Tawi-Tawi (Zambasulta) area to address a supply shortage and rising prices of the commodity.

“We cannot encourage rice smuggling. Even if it’s marami sa ating bansa, we cannot say we have to legalize rice smuggling. It’s against the law,” Villar, who chairs the Senate committee on Food and Agriculture, said on the sidelines of the Agriculture and Fisheries Technology Forum in Mandaluyong City.

“We passed the Large-Scale Agricultural Smuggling law that will declare any smuggled rice ... more than P10 million ... as economic sabotage and non-bailable,” the senator said.

On Tuesday, August 28, Agriculture Secretary Manny Piñol said he was making a proposal before the National Food Authority (NFA) Council to legalize all transactions related to rice, include smuggling, in order to address the crisis in the Zambasulta area.

Zamboanga City and Basilan declared a state of calamity as rice prices shot up to as high as P70 per kilo.

The area was relying on rice smuggling—particularly from Malaysia—but was stopped after President Rodrigo Duterte’s meeting with Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad in July, Piñol said.

But Villar said that encouraging smuggling will only do more harm.

“We should be strict about the law. Otherwise, we will encourage smugglers to continue their work,” she said. —VDS, GMA News