Velifying so-called "Rice Smugglers" in the Philippines.

From the Manila Standard http://www.manilastandardtoday.com/?page=news01_mar17_2006 "Rice Smuggler Haven Raided,"

In the positively Orwellian world we call the Philippines, the highly publicized seizure of a boat load of smuggled rice contraband is the moral equivalent of let’s say an intercepted shipment of Columbian cocaine on America’s shores. Gloria Macapagal Arroyo President of the Republic of the Philippines even commented on the smuggling bust, saying “I am very proud to have received [a report] that today, even as we speak, we are conducting the biggest raid against smugglers in the history of the Philippines,” Judging by the hoopla surrounding the bust, you’d think Filipino Law Enforcement seized containers full of weapons, barges full of drugs, and other serious contraband. Amidst all this bluster and pomp, hardly a voice dares to speak out the obvious. The contraband in question here, is not drugs, trafficked humans, or guns, but rice. In a nation suffering from poverty and its’ agonizing effects why is the Government actively trying to suppress cheaper rice from being imported into the country?

Arroyo also had this to say “This is going to fight corruption. This is going to raise revenues. This is going to protect the businessmen who are doing legitimate production, and this is the kind of reform that we will continue to do alongside our constitutional reform to make our process of lawmaking more attuned to the new flat economy,”

On the contrary Madame President, this will not fight corruption but create it. The Government in the Philippines has monopolized the rice trade, hence the necessity of an illegal black market for rice. The very same Government officials who accuse smugglers of corruption are put in ideal conditions to receive bribes and kickbacks for looking the other way. It makes a crime of an honest profession, trading rice, and yet another generation of corrupt politicians. Sadly, the journalists in the Philippines are out of touch with such thinking, and they continue to rail against the corruption without knowing its’ true source. The barriers should be removed and the Government’s corrupt monopoly on rice stricken from the law.