PUSHED

gling Act to give it more teeth and to include hoarding, price manipulation and cartel as economic sabotage and non-bailable.

Sen. Francis Tolentino, who chairs the Committee on Justice and Human Rights, presided at the hearing, and explained at the outset that Villar filed Senate Bill No. 1963 to address the seemingly uncontrollable spike of prices brought about by the “smuggling” of agricultural products.

D espite Republic Act No. 10845, or the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Act of 2016, Tolentino lamented that smuggling of agricultural products continues unabated.

T he main purpose of the Anti-Agricultural Smuggling Court, he said, is to try cases involving smuggling, hoarding, profiteering and cartel of agricultural products and to ensure that individuals and organizations involved in these activities are held accountable for their actions.

A lso at the hearing, Minority Leader Aquilino “Koko” Pimentel III asked the Justice committee to review the Implementing Rules and Regulations (IRR) of Republic Act 10845. He wanted the committee to determine “how a simple law was made difficult to enforce because of a faulty IRR.”

Maybe we can add a specific crime to the law like ‘refusal to prosecute large-scale agricultural smuggling which will make liable the legal department (of the Bureau of Customs) and even the Department of Justice prosecutors, depending on the evidence,” Pimentel said. “This is similar to obstruction of justice but very specific. In my opinion, this will be additional teeth to the law,” he added.

P imentel also wanted to amend section 3 of RA 10845 by rewriting the phrase “as valued by the Bureau of Customs” and involve the Department of Agriculture in the valuation of smuggled agricultural products in order to put flexibility to the law. Butch Fernandez