This story sounds familiar.
It was just last year that the National Food Authority (NFA) got into hot water because it sold its supposedly nearly rotting rice to traders at a very low price of P25 per kilogram for their repacking and sale to the marketplace at current market value.
For this, the NFA leadership underwent suspension along with regional and field officials (including warehousemen) of the agency. Thus, the new leadership under NFA Administrator Larry Lacson.
And now, this again.
For all the years NFA had been handling rice (from a monopoly to just a buffer stock maintainer for emergencies) the NFA still could not determine the shelf lives of rice and could not even say the quality of the grains that it keeps in its provincial and regional warehouses.
But apparently now, this gimmick is being used to bolster the Department of Agriculture's (DA) move to ask for the return of NFA in the rice trade (importation and price/market regulation) to ensure stocks in the market and prevent overpricing, hoarding and other trade malpractices.
Or maybe this is just another excuse to dispose of the rice at below market price– even at the Kadiwa ng Pangulo (KNP) outlets– just to force old stocks to be made available to the low-income groups while awaiting for imported rice stocks to arrive this December until February.
This way, the government would have goodwill to show to people that it can reduce prices to its desired P25 per kilogram (the campaign promise of the President).
Lacson told Brigada News FM Manila that the 6 million bags of rice in their warehouses nationwide have ages ranging from one month to six months from milling date and must be sold soon to the public.
Lacson said much as they want these rice supplies sold at lower price to the public, but the Rice Tariffication Law (RTL) prevents them from doing so. (This is another reason being cited to show the urgency of returning NFA's monopolistic hold over the rice market and supplies/importations, which DA is crafting a bill for the President's certification of urgency).
Under the RTL, the regulatory power of NFA to sell rice at lower prices has been removed.
Lacson said that when RTL was passed in 2019, the mandate of their office has simply been reduced into just a “buffer-stocking agency” where they can only sell rice when there is calamity.
The law also limits their selling to the Department of Social Welfare and Development (DSWD), Office of the Civil Defense (OCD) and the local government units (LGUs).
The NFA official fears that if the law is not amended the rice in their warehouses might rot if not disposed of soon while many Filipinos are in dire need of cheaper rice.
Lacson urged the lawmakers to amend the RTL and allow them to sell rice at lower prices without any preconditions.
"Pinapaalam namin sa publiko na may impending problem tayo, impending problem na pwede pong solusyon sa mataas na presyo ng bigas sa merkado ngayon. Kumbaga kapag nailabas to ng NFA, panalo lahat, panalo ang consumer, panalo ang mga magsasaka kasi mababakante ang bodega namin makakapamili tayo ng maraming palay,” Lacson said.
Department of Agriculture (DA) Assistant Secretary Arnel De Mesa said that if only the NFA is allowed to sell rice in the market they can sell their stock as low as P30 per kilo.
The prices for regular and well milled rice based on the DA’s monitoring in the market ranged from P45 per kilo but the supply is limited while in some areas the price reached up to P60 per kilo.
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