General Admission
Defining smuggling, stealing
By Al S. Mendoza
IS there rice smuggling really?
If we listened on radio or watched on TV the past Senate hearings investigating alleged rice smuggling, it would seem none.
And yet, before the probes, it’s been reported that the government has been losing an average of P2.6 billion a year to rice smugglers since 2002 yet.
How could it happen that smugglers would just walk away with so much money stolen and stuffed safely in their pockets without being even detected by the authorities?
Oh, well, the most common basic answer to that is, the authorities have always been part of the crime.
Listen to Mayor Duterte of Davao: “If the Bureau of Customs and the Coast Guard officials will only do their job correctly and properly, there will be no smuggling in this country.”
Bull’s-eye!
“If the cat is away, the mice will play,” goes the saying again.
The Customs and Coast Guard are cats assigned to catch smugglers.
If they don’t catch smugglers, there is no smuggling.
In this blighted nation of ours, it is oftentimes the case, if not all of the time, that our Custom and Coast Guard officials are away, giving the mice all the time to play.
Meaning, that our Customs and Coast Guard officials are in their offices regularly, yes, but they merely are looking the other way to let the smugglers play their game.
You know the reason.
We all know the reason.
Even P-Noy knows the reason.
But even as the President himself knows the reason, all he could say was, “Saan ba kayo (Customs officials) kumukuha ng kapal ng mukha (para magnakaw sa kaban ng bayan)?”
Brave words. But aimed at people immune to indecency.
People without a conscience can never reform. They are like parasites: They suck till they die.
Smugglers are like that. They live, thrive, because they have “ever ready batteries” disguised as government guardians.
So back to the question about whether or not smugglers exist.
If you ask me, they don’t.
To me, smugglers are those that bring in products without the authorities not knowing about it.
The smugglers we are being referred to are actually thieves, robbers.
They import goods without paying the correct duties. Isn’t that stealing and not smuggling?
When they get “caught” and are accused as being smugglers, the accused would merely show a “permit to import” and, to complete their proof of engaging in lawful business, they would next show the color of money to the “arresting” officers from Customs and Coast Guard.
If that is smuggling for you, I have no further questions, your honor.
With tariffs and duties drastically reduced in exchange for hush money, isn’t that stealing government money?
Smuggling, stealing or whatever, the difference is the same—as Kuya Leonie Galvez loves to say.
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