Every Panganiban sugar landing can fetch life term

Customs and agriculture career officers are in a bind. Last Feb. 9 they confiscated shiploads of Thai refined sugar in Batangas that had no permit. But on Feb. 27, Agriculture Senior Usec. Domingo Panganiban ordered the contraband released on doubtful grounds. He invoked authority from President Marcos Jr. and Executive Sec. Lucas Bersamin.

Should the officers obey Panganiban against their sworn duties?

If they do, they can be accomplices to economic sabotage. And plunder. Their careers will be ruined.

Same with Panganiban’s three fellow Sugar Regulatory Administration board members if they sign the sugar release.

Economic sabotage, a no-bail heinous crime, fetches life imprisonment. Same with plunder. Years of tedious trial is punishment enough. Let alone tarnished reputation and family dishonor.

Agricultural smuggling is economic sabotage. Threshold is P1 million worth of sugar, corn, pork, poultry, garlic, onion, carrots, fish, vegetables; or P10 million rice.

Three elements constitute plunder. One, series or combination of crimes. Two, P50-million minimum amassed. Three, personal benefit.

The Feb. 9 sugar shipment was deemed smuggled, in breach of the Tariffs and Customs Code.

The last import under SRA Sugar Order No. 2, of Sept. 13, 2022, should have arrived by last Nov. 15. Only on Feb. 15, 2023 did SRA issue Sugar Order No. 6, effective after three days, Feb. 18. It set five days, till Feb. 23, to accept and evaluate sugar import bids. Then another five days, till Feb. 28, to award the winning importers. Only thereafter may new sugar arrive.

The 1986 SRA Act was also violated.

Panganiban admitted to have issued a secret memo as far back as Jan. 13. In that memo he authorized private firms All Asian Countertrade, Edison Lee Marketing and S&D Sucden to import 240,000, 100,000 and 100,000 tons, respectively. He preempted the SRA which has sole power to award sugar import permits. Usurpation of authority.

Citing his Jan. 13 secret memo, Panganiban ordered SRA on Feb. 27 to issue import permits, covering the Feb. 9 contraband.

That broke the legal requirement to publicize all executive orders, including Sugar Order No. 6-2023, with the U.P. Law Center’s Office of the National Administrator for Registration.

Also broken was the Anti-Graft and Corrupt Practices Act. Specifically: Section 3a, “Persuading, inducing or influencing another public officer … to violate rules and regulations … or allowing himself to be persuaded, induced or influenced.”

Section 3e, “Causing any undue injury to any party, including the Government, or giving any private party any unwarranted benefits, advantage or preference … through manifest partiality, evident bad faith or gross inexcusable negligence.”

Customs values at P100,000 a ton of trafficked refined sugar. The 6,500 tons in Batangas amounted to P650 million – 650 times the P1-million threshold for economic sabotage. Also, 13 times the P50-million threshold for plunder. It came in three ships.

The 440,000 tons, or 8.8 million sacks, will come in 200 more ships. Each landing will mean more counts of economic sabotage and plunder.

Proof of personal gain will come from the annual Statements of Assets, Liabilities and Net Worth of the officials involved. As well, from the income statements of the three companies. Plus, lifestyle checks.

Three sugar planters associations are howling against Panganiban’s “legitimizing” of the Batangas contraband sugar. Farmer leader Leonardo Montemayor urges them to question it in court. Senator Risa Hontiveros calls the Jan. 13 Panganiban memo “government-sponsored smuggling.” The Senate Blue Ribbon committee has yet to hear it.

The ombudsman can investigate on its own and file a case with the Sandiganbayan. Ex-senator Ping Lacson has long exposed the antedating of permits to cover smuggled produce.

How will Filipinos, suffering from soaring sugar retail prices, benefit from prosecuting the officials? Simple. Sell cheap all the seized sugar at Kadiwa rolling stores in indigent communities. Maximum price: P50 per kilo, half the prevailing rate. Better still, only P20 per kilo, the known sugar acquisition price from Thailand.

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