Customs to donate confiscated rice to DSWD

Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III has ordered the Bureau of Customs (BOC) to donate smuggled rice the agency has seized to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD) to aid in the government’s anti-poverty and disaster relief programs.

In a statement, Dominguez directed Customs Commissioner Rey Leonardo Guerrero to make a fresh donation of 30,000 bags of undocumented rice shipments to DSWD.

Dominguez gave the order to

Guerrero after the new Customs commissioner reported that the bureau intercepted the shipment after being tagged in Zamboanga City as undocumented imported rice.

“Donate that to the DSWD. They can use that,” Dominguez told Guerrero, who attended his first Executive Committee meeting at the Department of Finance (DOF) recently.

The 30,000 bags of rice for donation to the DSWD are on top of the 16,000 bags earlier turned over by the BOC under thencommissioner Isidro Lapeña to the DSWD to augment disaster relief efforts for typhoon victims, also on Dominguez’s orders.

About 9,000 bags of rice seized in the Port of Cebu were turned over by the Customs to the DSWD last September 14.

Another 6,921 bags in the Port of Zamboanga and 748 bags in the custody of the bureau’s Enforcement and Security Service (ESS) were also donated to the DSWD on September 19 and 24, respectively.

The Customs said it also donated to the DSWD 5,040 pieces of canned goods, 109 packages of emergency survival blankets; 350 boxes of bed sheets, blankets and towels; 1,332 boxes of brand new clothes, and 153 packages of face masks from the Manila International Container Port (MICP) last September.

According to a Customs report to Dominguez, the Bureau will also donate used clothing of various volumes seized from the ports of San Fernando in La Union, Manila, MICP, Legazpi City, Cebu, Cagayan de Oro, Davao and Subic.