December 4, 2006
Investigators found fictitious pork importer accredited in the Philippines
Investigators in the Philippines said that the company that brought in four container vans of prohibited raw pork from China probably exists in name only and is suspected to have been involved in previous smuggling attempts.
Yet the same company was accredited by the Customs bureau to import Chinese products.
Philippines currently has a ban on pork from China due to foot-and-mouth disease.
About 100,000 kilogrammes of pork belonging to Asia Golden Ark Marketing was seized in August for breaking the ban on unprocessed Chinese poultry and meat, but disappeared from the Customs warehouse 2 months later.
Thieves apparently intended to resell the pork, in Pampanga. Part of the loot has since been recovered.
Finance department officials said Asia Golden could not be found at its stated business address and the firm did not file income tax returns in 2004 or 2005.
Despite that fact, Asia Golden was authorised to import fish from China until recently.
The pork contraband, worth about 6 million pesos, was labeled as mackerel.
A consumer group also has exposed Asia Golden to be a smuggler of onions and eggs from China. Retired commodore Ismael Aparri, alleged last week the illicit sale of import permits was implicitly allowed at the Customs and Bureau of Plant Industry.
Aparri said Asia Golden was one of 30 favored importers who bought 400 or so permits this year. The company was also among those that sneaked in eggs from China, similarly banned because of bird flu epidemic.
An umbrella group of hog raisers meanwhile urged the revival of a Cabinet-level anti-smuggling committee, and to make the Customs submit to them a list of authorised meat importers and planned imports.
The National Federation of Hog Farmers Inc., which groups 45 associations, complained to Finance Sec. Margarito Teves that the pork smuggling is endangering their industry, the second biggest in the country, next to rice.
