QUEZON CITY, Nov. 24 – Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol ordered starting Nov. 22, 2016, a total recall of all permits issued for the importation of meat and poultry products in the wake of the proliferation of recycled permits that he said are being used in the technical smuggling of such products.
A technical working group, he said, has been created to assess and handle the issuance of new permits effective upon the issuance of an order.
Piñol made the move based on a United Nations report on the volume of meat and offals imported by the country over the last few months. He also said the DA and the Bureau of Customs were alarmed by reports that companies with import permits issued under the previous Administration were caught “recycling” such permits twice or thrice to facilitate smuggling.
“We are not saying that we are stopping all importations. What we just want is to clean up the issuance of permits. As long as they are legitimate importations, hindi natin pipigilan yan. We want a uniform imposition of tariff. Ibig sabihin wala ng offal ngayon,” he added.
The UN report, on the other hand, indicated that there is a tendency to declare good meat as offals resulting in a 30 percent reduction in the tariff paid by importers.
“Ibig sabihin nito may mga good meat na dine-declare na offal pagdating sa Pilipinas Now if there is a misdeclaration and they’re able to succeed in bringing in these goods, malaki mawawala sa gobyerno,” Piñol said. (DA)
Source: Philippine Information Agency (PIA)