ANGELES CITY – “Raids won’t suffice, not even simple hoarding or smuggling charges. Sue them for economic sabotage.”
Thus the advocacy group Pinoy Gumising Ka Movement (PGKM) challenged Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas yesterday “to show and prove government resolve to run after and punish rice hoarders.”
Roxas, along with operatives of the Criminal Investigation and Detection Group and representatives of the National Food Authority raided the warehouse of the Purefeeds Corp. in Malolos City after an earlier similar operation in Muntinlupa City which was also participated in by former Sen. Francis Pangilinan, presidential adviser on food security and agricultural modernization.
Roxas charged Purefeeds Corp. of mixing old stock rice “unfit for human consumption” with imported rice from Vietnam. “They are selling adulterated rice,” Roxas said, noting that the goods are passed off as premium variety.
At the raided Jubilee Multitech Inc. warehouses in Muntinlupa, authorities found the old rice stocks mixed with rodent droppings and cockroach eggs. Pangilinan said these showed “a clear intent to deceive the buying public.”
The former senator cited illegal repacking and hoarding of NFA rice as a violation of Republic Act No. 7581, or the Price Act Law, which is punishable by five to 15 years’ imprisonment and can cost a business its accreditation and lead to its blacklisting.
To the PGKM however, “the gravity of the offense, given the spike in the prices of prime commodities, the artificial shortages caused by hoarding, the danger adulterated rice poses on the health of the people, price manipulation and the unconscionable profiteering scheme of the hoarders merit charges for economic sabotage.”
Economic sabotage is a capital offense punishable with life imprisonment. “Government should impact the full force of the law on these hoarders not only of rice but also of garlic and other prime commodities,” PGKM Chairman Ruperto Cruz said. “If it is really serious in eradicating hoarding once and for all. Else, all these raids will be nothing more than propagandistic “pa-pogi” points for Roxas’ 2016 ambitions.”
Earlier, the militant Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) branded the raids of rice warehouses as a “build-up” to President Aquino’s State of the Nation Address (SONA) and to boost the image of Roxas as the Liberal Party’s standard bearer in the 2016 presidential derby.
“Those so-called raids conducted by Interior Secretary Manuel Roxas and Presidential Assistant on Food Security and Agricultural Modernization Francis Pangilinan on rice warehouses were really all for show,” said the KMP.
