00:00President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. led the distribution of more than P178 million pesos worth of frozen mackerels to residents of Tondo, Manila.
00:12Kenneth Paciente will be back.
00:17In the pursuit of food security,
00:22President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. led the distribution of more than P178 million pesos worth of frozen mackerels to residents of Tondo, Manila.
00:31Hundreds of families in Baseco Compounds, Manila received two kilograms of mackerels.
00:37According to the Department of Agriculture and our customs,
00:42they saw that the documents were incomplete and the payment was incomplete.
00:47That's why the government started it.
00:52That's how it happened.
00:55But, as you can see, it's still in the freezer.
01:00It's a waste. It's a terrible waste.
01:06There's a lot of food that can be eaten.
01:09We can eat a lot of food.
01:14That's why we're distributing it to you,
01:19so that you can help, so that you can sell fish.
01:23This is a big help to my family, sir.
01:26We're thankful that if not for this fish, my children wouldn't be happy.
01:35It's a big help. It's important.
01:37Because it's hard to make money.
01:41The President insisted that the government should tighten the security
01:45to prevent smuggling of any product.
01:48And if such incidents happen again,
01:51that can produce any product and agricultural products,
01:55he will definitely send them to the people.
01:58Because of the Anti-Agricultural Economic Sabotage Act.
02:01What they do is, they smuggle it in,
02:05then they'll close it.
02:06They won't let it out.
02:08They'll wait until the price goes up.
02:10If the price goes up, they'll buy it.
02:13That's why we're avoiding it.
02:16Because the victims are the people,
02:18the common people.
02:20That's why we won't allow such a system to continue.
02:26Before the distribution, the Executive Board
02:29inspected the container vans that contained the smuggled fish.
02:34Here, the President gave a directive to the government agencies
02:38to tighten the Anti-Agricultural Economic Sabotage Act.
02:43Especially the smugglers that smuggle in the market in the Philippines.
02:47This is the chain that we need to break.
02:54This is the first case under the new law
02:59of the Anti-Agricultural Economic Sabotage Act.
03:04So, I've spoken to our Bureau of Customs,
03:11I've spoken to the Department of Agriculture,
03:13and we have to keep going.
03:14We need to strengthen this.
03:16The smugglers from the 21 containers
03:20that were smuggled in the country,
03:22but were stopped by the Bureau of Customs
03:24because of the lack of documents.
03:26In particular, the sanitary and phytosanitary import clearance
03:29from the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources.
03:32Aside from the distribution today,
03:34the smugglers were also allowed to be distributed
03:36to other parts of the NCR,
03:38as well as to Regions 3 and 4A,
03:40where 150,000 families are expected to benefit from the whole.
03:45In September, the frozen smugglers were in Wata,
03:47and in October, they passed the inspection,
03:50and it was discovered that they were safe
03:52for human consumption.
03:55Kenneth Paciente,
03:57for Pambansang TV in Bago, Philippines.
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