Photo Release

Not merely an issue of corruption: Sen. Pia Cayetano commends Senate President Vicente Sotto III during the hybrid plenary session Tuesday, December 7, 2021 for his privilege speech on large scale smuggling of agricultural products. Sotto said port congestion, red tape, kotong and under the table arrangements were issues in the Bureau of Customs that burdened the businesses and weakened the business climate in the country. “As chairperson of the Committee on Sustainable Development and Goals (SDG), Innovation and Futures Thinking, I think it is important to point out that for those who think that this is a corruption issue, this also affects SDG 1 which is our goal to have no poverty. Majority of our farmers are part of the poor population of the country. SDG 2 is zero hunger and obviously the availability of reasonably priced and abundance of fresh and nutritious food is part of our goals for zero hunger while SDG 8 is decent work,” Cayetano explained. (Screen grab/Senate PRIB)