The Palawan Provincial Prosecutor's Office has filed charges of violation of the provisions of Tariff and Customs Code of the Philippines against 25 Vietnamese nationals who were caught smuggling rice into the country through Calanduran Bay in Balabac last May 16.
Commodore Danilo Vilda of the Philippine Coast Guard (PCG) in Palawan said the foreign nationals are being sued for specifically violating Section 2530, paragraphs a, d, f, r and (1-1) of the tariffs and customs code. Six Balabac's residents were also included in the cases filed with the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR).
He said one of the Balabac residents is Rabana Ami, owner of M/L Princess Aika, which is also involved in the transport of the sacks of rice from the large Vietnamese ship to Balabac port.
The cases against the Vietnamese fishermen were filed last Tuesday (May 20), the PCG chief said, adding their ship, M/V Binh Phuoc, was responsible for bringing to the country more or less 200 sacks of undocumented rice smuggled from Vietnam. The vessel's captain was identified as Vu Van Trung.
On May 16 at about 8:30 p.m., a text message was received from the commanding officer of MCS 3009 that stated it accosted a Vietnamese cargo vessel whose crewmen were unloading sacks of rice to M/L Princess Aika without pertinent documents at Calanduran Bay.
Initial investigations conducted by authorities disclosed that on April 23, the Vietnamese cargo vessel went to Zamboanga City from Saigon, Vietnam and delivered 135,000 sacks of rice to the National Food Authority (NFA) there. The said vessel arrived in the said city on April 28.
It left Zamboanga port on May 9 supposedly to go back to Vietnam without any load based on records and clearance given by the Bureau of Customs (BOC) of Zamboanga. - Philippine News Agency
No comments:
Post a Comment