P1.085B in revenues lost in past six years due to seafood misdeclaration, smuggling —Lacson

The Philippines is losing an average of P1.085 billion in seafood importation revenues due to misdeclaration or smuggling, Senator Panfilo Lacson said Thursday.

During the continuation of Senate Committee of the Whole hearing on food security, Lacson flagged the discrepancies between the records of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Philippine Statistics Authority (PSA) on the volume of imports in seafood, chicken, and pork products.

“Bakit inversely proportional ‘yung quantity sa record ng WTO dun sa record ng PSA? Ibig sabihin maraming misdeclaration or underdeclaration ito or maraming smuggling,” Lacson said.

(Why is the quantity in the records of the WTO and the PSA inversely proportional? That means there's a lot of misdeclaration, under-declaration or smuggling happening.)

“Ang nawawala rito per year, in taxes, revenues ang nawawala, average of P1.085 billion yearly during the last six years, from 2015 to 2020,” the lawmaker added, referring to seafood importation alone.

(We are losing in taxes an average of P1.085 billion yearly during the last six years, from 2015 to 2020.)

He said there is a “pattern” as there are also discrepancies in the WTO and PSA records on the importation of pork and chicken.

“Ang lalaki ng discrepancy. I would just like to point this out simply because hindi lang sa pork itong mga kalokohan, it cuts across practically lahat…and the records would not lie,” he said.

(There is a huge discrepancy. I would just like to point this out simply because we don't observe only anomalies in pork importation. It cuts across practically all food products... and the records would not lie.)

Reesponding to Lacson’s concern on the discrepancy on seafood importation, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Director Eduardo Gongona said he believes that this is due to misdeclaration based on the records from his bureau.

“We will check the records of the discrepancy but I think that’s misdeclaration,” he said.

He added that BFAR is working with the Bureau of Customs in making sure that importation of fish and seafood products is well supervised.

“On record po lahat ‘yan. Ngayon, kung may discrepancy, I think we should investigate and we will investigate,” Gongona said.

Senate conducted an investigation on the food security crisis brought about by the outbreak of the African swine fever outbreak in many areas.

Lacson was one of the senators who called for the inquiry to look into the alleged activities of a syndicate within the Department of Agriculture (DA) that he said could possibly gain billions of pesos in kickbacks from the recommendation to reduce tariff rates and increase minimum access volume (MAV) allocation on pork imports.

President Rodrigo Duterte last week issued EO 128 on the reduction of the tariff rates on pork imports.

Under EO 128, the tariff rate for imported pork meat within quota or MAV—whether fresh, chilled or frozen—will be pegged at 5% for the first three months upon the EO’s effectivity and 10% for the fourth to 12 months.

The tariff rate for imported meat outside of the MAV, however, has been set to 15% for the first three months upon the EO’s effectivity and 20% for the fourth to the 12th months.

The existing 30% to 40% tariff rate for imported pork will be restored after the 12th month.

Senators, however, want the executive order revoked as it could only hurt the local hog industry.  —KBK, GMA News