THE entire members of the Quezon City council led by presiding officer the ever youthful Vice Mayor Joy Belmonte truly deserves a pat on the back for showing their sincerity in public service and being role models at the same time.
That can be revealed by their latest move to prohibit the use of polyethylene or plastic advertisement and propaganda materials within the territorial jurisdiction of the city.
According to VM Belmonte and main proponent, Councilor Dorothy Delarmente, they as politicians will be directly affected by their plan as political campaigning is near at the local levels for the May 13 midterm polls but they must demonstrate good example to their constituents, hence the move to ban plastic propaganda materials all over the city.
They’re just consistent. First, the Belmonte-led city council earlier passed a measure that regulated the use of plastic bags especially at the malls and similar establishments. They then completely banned plastic materials including styrofoam at the City Hall complex and government hospitals as well.
They said: “Polyethylene types are the ones that are usually found disposed in waterways, regulation must therefore be implemented and there’s an urgency to come up with a policy that will prohibit the use of plastic advertisement and propaganda materials to somehow address environmental impact concern and disaster risk reduction for the people of Quezon City.”
Kick Hard Those Smugglers Out!
In his determined bid to cleanse the list of rice importers and brokers from the Interim Customs Accreditation and Registration (ICARE) unit in order to stop rice smuggling, Bureau of Customs Commissioner Rosano “Ruffy” Biazon has delisted at least 39 of them.
Earlier, this writer was told that the unthreatened BOC commissioner had removed from the list some 14 firms and cooperatives, bringing to 170 that had lost their accreditation. This was said to be a record high at the bureau.
Those removed like the Bubog Farmers Cooperative, Formosa Multi-Purpose Cooperative and Jefmin Farmers Primary Multi Purpose Cooperative, among others, turned to have no proven track record as most of them have failed to comply with the BOC requirements.
Commissioner Biazon says: “The BOC has nothing to do with the issuance of rice importation quota allocations as this is the function of the National Food Authority.
But on our end, as a pre-emptive measure to stop rice smuggling, we are purging our list of importers/companies that may have been accredited earlier by the BOC as a general merchandise importer upon compliance of minimum requirements, but were given large rice importation allocation quota by the NFA.”
Last year, Commissioner Biazon’s alert agents intercepted tons of smuggled rice worth P500-million at the Subic Freeport Zone. Through a Senate inquiry, it’s discovered that even “small-fry” firms and cooperatives, which don’t have capacity to import rice in such huge volumes, can easily obtain importation quota allocations from the NFA.
Go, go Comm. Ruffy you are heading the righteous path, kick hard those smugglers out!
