The Presidential Anti-Corruption Commission (PACC) will investigate the alleged corruption in imported pork after Senator Panfilo Lacson revealed that some personnel of the Department of Agriculture charge additional P5 to P7 per kilo of imported pork.
“The PACC will investigate. In fact, we have already started the investigation last December 2020. The PACC issued a resolution to conduct a motu propio investigation on the alleged corruption in pork importation and will issue the corresponding subpoena,” PACC Commissioner Greco Belgica said in a text message.
Such scheme, Belgica said, should never be tolerated, especially amid the COVID-19 crisis.
“Maling mali po yan. Pandemya na, pagnanakawan pa ang bayan. Pasensyahan po tayo (That would be very wrong. We are in a pandemic and yet the taxpayers’ money is being stolen),” Belgica said.
“The PACC will submit its report and recommendations to the President,” he added.
Lacson is set to file a resolution for the Senate Committee of the Whole or Senate Blue Ribbon Committee to investigate what he says is “tongpats” on imported pork products.
PACC to investigate alleged corruption in imported pork
His information allegedly came from an “insider” in the DA where it is said that the syndicate charges every kilo of imported pork.
He said the syndicate is imposing millions of pesos and this is possibly the reason why there is a push to allow the import of 400,000 metric tons or 400 million kilograms of pork and lower the tariff to 5 to 10 percent.
The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP) also called on the Senate and Congress to investigate the alleged kickback on imported pork.
The group warned that importers and some officials will get rich by collecting kickbacks while the local hog industry is dying.
In a statement, KMP chairman emeritus and Anakpawis chairperson Rafael Mariano said the DA cannot be trusted and it is unacceptable that they have accomplices who are questionable importers and traders.
“We cannot trust the Department of Agriculture (DA), an agency that is notorious for corrupt practices such as the fertilizer scam among others. It is unacceptable for the DA to be in cahoots with unscrupulous importers and traders,” said Mariano, who became Department of Agrarian Reform chief under Duterte in 2016.