MANILA, Philippines - The Bureau of Customs has delisted 39 "suspicious and fictitious" entities from the list of accredited rice importers and brokers, as the agency aggressively tackles rice smuggling.

"[A]s 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 (National Food Authority)," BOC Commissioner Ruffy Biazon said in a statement.

Among the 39 delisted rice importers were 16 cooperatives which had little or no track record at all, the BOC pointed out. The rest, meanwhile, were small trading companies, the agency said.

The entities were delisted from the BOC's Interim Customs Accreditation and Registration unit, which oversees importers and brokers.