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By Jayson Cruz Luna, Contributor and
Sammy Martin, Correspondent
The National Food Authority (NFA) has
intensified market monitoring operations in Metro Manila and in the
provinces, especially in calamity-stricken areas.
Stocks of NFA rice used to feed the country have
been reportedly repacked as commercial rice and was sold as such at
a higher price.
In a weekly news conference, NFA Administrator
Jessup Navarro said NFA is fielding additional enforcement teams
nationwide to conduct monitoring activities and apprehend corrupt
businessmen to minimize, if not eradicate, rice diversion in the
country.
NFA is acting on the call of President Gloria
Arroyo to monitor the alleged rice diversion in the country and
crack down on unscrupulous individuals engaged in malevolent rice
retailing business.
Navarro claimed several grains businessmen have
already been apprehended and charged for unreasonable depletion of
NFA stocks, diversion of NFA rice and overpricing in Metro Manila
alone.
The agency has already arrested 98 violators as
of March 10 this year, 55 in 2007 and 82 in 2006.
Navarro also issued a special order calling for
the immediate reshuffling of the agency’s field executives to
implement the agency’s rice distribution functions and other major
programs.
He ordered a thorough investigation into the
alleged involvement of some NFA officials in the diversion of rice
stocks, warning them that if found guilty of accusations,
appropriate charges will be filed immediately.
“We don’t tolerate unlawful activities of
our officials especially at the expense of our countrymen,”
Navarro told The Manila Times in an interview.
He warned grains businessmen as well as NFA
officials and employees not to engage in illegal activities like
diversion of stocks, saying “Retailers will face immediate
cancellation of their allocation. We will also file appropriate
charges and impose penalties like revocation of their license to
operate.”
Navarro said that as early as December 2007, NFA
probed the alleged diversion of some 120,000 sacks of rice in
Northern Mindanao.
Navarro was reacting to a statement made by
Senate Minority Floorleader Aquilino Pimentel Jr. who denounced the
alleged diversion in the area.
Navarro said NFA field executives, from
provincial to regional managers, were reshuffled, but clarified that
the reshuffling of NFA executives is not directly related with the
reported rice anomaly.
The reshuffling is done regularly to prevent the
development of a closer relationship between NFA executives and the
grain retailers.
He said he has already ordered the immediate
cancellation of the rice allotment to grains retailers benefiting
from the said rice diversion.
The NFA chief said that they are making efforts
to curb illegal activities of grains traders, adding NFA supports
the hunger mitigation and poverty alleviation programs of the
President.
NFA is giving priority rice allocations to the
“Bigasan ni Gloria sa Palengke” and “Tindahan Natin” outlets
where NFA rice is being sold at P18.25 per kilo while reducing
allocation to rice retailers inside the market.
Meanwhile, Gabriela partylist Rep. Luzviminda
Ilagan called for heads to roll upon learning that
rice, the Filipinos’ staple food, is being
sold at a higher price by inept traders allegedly in connivance with
some officials of the National Food Authority (NFA).
“The mandate of NFA is to sell rice to the
public at low rates. It is supplying commercial stores because
there’s a rice crisis. It is tantamount to economic sabotage,”
Ilagan said in a text message.
Ilagan also urged the Department of Agriculture
(DA) to investigate, saying “business will deceive the public,
selling rice bought cheaply but sold at high prices,” she pointed
out.
She said she might ask the House committee on
agriculture to investigate to remove those in cahoots with abusive
traders.
Ilagan urged the agency to prove that they are
not conniving with corrupt traders by mounting a crackdown on grains
syndicates and cartels responsible for the illegal diversion and
sale of state-subsidized rice at higher, commercial rates and other
trade malpractices.
NFA rice is sold at P18 per kilo. When repacked
using commercial sacks, it is sold between P24 to P28 per kilo.
NFA rice is seldom seen in retail outlets in
many parts of the country because it was reportedly being siphoned
off to grains traders, who sell them in the market for P22 to 27 per
kilo, instead of the P15 per kilo authorized by the government.
Ilagan said government should be tough against
rice cartelization in the face of fears of a looming crisis in the
staple cereal.
She added that the threat of decreasing rice
supply could be traced to global warming, diminishing hectarage of
rice lands, water shortage, hoarding of rice by grains cartels and
the inability of rice-exporting countries to meet rice demands by
the Philippines.
The NFA is also implementing a rice conservation
program nationwide to help avert an impending rice crisis.
It has a joint advocacy project with the
Department of Agriculture that aims to educate the Filipinos in the
importance of rice conservation especially nowadays that rice
shortage is imminent.
Studies conducted by the Bureau of Agricultural
Statistics (BAS) and the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI)
show that at least 25,000 sacks of rice equivalent to P30 million is
being wasted everyday.
The study also shows these losses include plate
wastes, food to pets and domesticated animals, pot wastes or burned
rice and spoilage, or any other food materials, raw or cooked, that
family members failed to consume.
A related study conducted by FNRI research
specialist Gracia Villavieja showed that edible food wastes tend to
be greater among smaller households. Villavieja associated this
trend with the more liberal and abundant supply of food wastes among
households with few members.
Earlier, Ginintuang Masaganag Ani (GMA)
Rice Program Director Frisco Malabanan had suggested that with the
imminent rice shortage, Filipinos should be ready to eat white corn,
cassava and other root crops as staple food.
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