Rice farmers ask SC to dismiss Davao City judge over rice smuggling case

The Supreme Court on Monday was asked to dismiss from service a Davao City judge for issuing an order that restrained the Bureau of Customs from seizing 91,800 bags of imported white rice.

 

The high court eventually stopped the December 12, 2013 Davao court order by issuing a temporary restraining order.

 

The Alyansa Agrikultura and the National Rice Farmers Council through their officers Ernesto Ordoñez and Jaime Tadeo filed a dismissal complaint against Presiding Judge Emmanuel Carpio of the Regional Trial Court Branch 16 for alleged "gross ignorance of the law."

 

The Davao court order stemmed from a complaint filed by Joseph Ngo, who bought 15 rice shipments from Starcraft International Trading Corp. The Bureau of Customs, however, did not release the shipments to Ngo, saying they were imported without a permit from the National Food Authority.

 

The petitioners said Carpio's "precipitous" issuance of a writ of preliminary injunction was filled with the following grave errors:

 

 

"The foregoing are basic concepts which every judge should know. The elementary nature of the rules disregarded by Respondent and the compounded effect of his mistakes show his serious failure to keep conversant about relevant development in our legal system," the petitioners noted.

 

Carpio's errors displayed a lack of competency which a member of the judiciary should possess, they said. "For these severe infractions, the supreme penalty of dismissal is but an appropriate sanction," the petition read.

 

The petitioners cited Supreme Court Administrative Circular 07-99 reminding judges not to issue temporary restraining orders or writs of preliminary injunction against seizure and detention proceedings of the BOC.

 

"(J)udges should never forget what the Court categorically declared in Mison v. Natividad (213 SCRA 734, 742 [1992] that "[b]y express provision of law, amply supported by well-settled jurisprudence, the Collector of Customs has exclusive jurisdiction over seizure and forfeiture proceedings, and regular courts cannot interfere with his exercise thereof or stifle or put it to naught," read the petition.

 

Rice shipments

 

The rice shipments arrived in October and November last year from Thailand and Singapore. Alert orders were eventually issued on the shipments, and the BOC district collector in Davao issued a halt order on November 5.

 

In his complaint before the Davao court, Ngo argued that since the "Special Treatment of Rice Importation" has already expired, quantitative restrictions such as requiring an import permit may no longer be imposed.

 

The BOC filed a motion for reconsideration of the preliminary injunction, while the NFA filed a motion to lift the injunction.

 

But last January 29, the Davao court declared the motions moot and academic since Customs Commissioner John Sevilla already lifted the alert hold seizure earlier issued by the BOC because "the tariff duties of the rice subject of preliminary injunction were duly paid and were in fact already released."

 

This prompted the BOC to challenge the Davao court's January 29 ruling before the high court, which eventually issued a TRO last February. 

 

Starcraft has been linked to businessman David Bangayan, who was alleged to be big-time rice smuggler David Tan. Sevilla had earlier said the Customs cannot pursue cases yet against Bangayan because he was not named as a consignee of the seized shipments. – VS, GMA News