Speaker Ferdinand Martin Romualdez on Sunday assured Filipino consumers that the surprise inspections at warehouses holding rice stocks last week will continue.
“I thank Customs Commissioner Bienvenido Rubio for his initiative of peering into these suspicious warehouses at a time when Filipinos are grappling with rising prices of rice. This will make hoarders think twice about their schemes,” he said.
“We need to carry out more of these inspections and I trust the commissioner to do so in order to keep rice traders obedient to the law,” Romualdez added.
On Aug. 24, a joint contingent from the House of Representatives and the Bureau of Customs swooped down at warehouses in Bulacan and found over 200,000 sacks of rice that were seemingly being purposely held.
The BOC, armed with letters of authority, barred the owners of the Great Harvest Rice Mill Warehouse, San Pedro Warehouse and FS Rice Mill from retrieving the goods pending submission of the required documents on their rice importation.
During the Bulacan inspections, Romualdez said the discovered supply of rice should be released to the local market in order to mitigate the rising prices of the staple grain.
Over the past few weeks, the price of rice has been steadily rising, with retailers selling at P50 to P62 per kilo in Metro Manila.
“All Filipinos eat rice. We regret the wastage of rice. This is why it (hoarding) really hurts and makes us angry,” Romualdez said.