Smuggling of agriculture products a big business

Over $10-billion worth of agriculture product are being into the Philippines in recent year, with milled rice remaining the top commodity entering the country illegally, a government-funded study showed.

In the study titled “An Assessment of Smuggling of Selected Agricultural Commodities in the Philippines,” the Southeast Asian Regional Center for Graduate Study and Research in Agriculture (Searca) said that during the period 1986 to 2008, about $1.96-billion worth of milled rice, approximately P88 billion at the current peso-dollar rate, were illegally shipped into the country.