THE chairman of the House committee on agriculture and food on Wednesday said he sees the need for a series of congressional investigations to assess the rice situation in the country in light of the recent shortage of buffer stocks from the National Food Authority.
The House committee earlier discovered that some 13 private traders have been hoarding rice in the National Capital Region, triggering an increase in the price of the commodity.
“As an oversight function of Congress, we need to complete the investigation and come out with new policy or amendment of existing ones to address the issue,” said ANAC-IP Party-list Rep. Jose Panganiban, the panel’s chairman.
The committee identified the alleged private rice hoarders as Evergreen, Rising Sun, GRC, CGG, Expo, ARNS, Working Gold, Leoneco, PMT, Hype Rice, LM Rice Cereal, MML Grain and Grandio.
Panganiban said his panel would invite the representatives of these companies to appear in the next House hearing to hear their side.
Meanwhile, Anakpawis Party-list Rep. Ariel Casilao urged the government to look into the botched smuggling of 1, 539 metric tons of rice.
Casilao, member of the leftist Makabayan bloc, said the rampant smuggling not only of rice but also of other agricultural products is the result of the continuing commitment of the government to importation under the Word Trade Organization agreement on agriculture.
“Agricultural smuggling is only a reflection of the country’s continuing madness to import. Not only has it abetted corruption but it is also an insult to our farmers,” Casilao said.
Citing a report of the Samahang Industriya ng Agrikultura, in the years from 2013 to 2015, Casilao said a total of P64 -billion revenue losses were incurred by the government due to widespread smuggling of agricultural products. This reflected a P32-billion loss per year, which is equivalent to the Department of Agriculture’s budget for 2016 and excess funds for the rehabilitation of the agriculture sector.
A separate report by Dr. Jose Ramon Albert, a senior research fellow from Philippine Institute for Development Studies, showed that those who were classified as poor had agriculture-related jobs, Casilao noted.
“Aside from virtually no government subsidies to local rice farmers for procuring reasonable price of palay, agricultural smuggling which includes rice is further killing our local rice farmers’ livelihood. Worse, through smuggling, billions of [pesos in] revenues are lost,” Casilao said.
NFA Administrator Jason Aquino ordered the agency’s special bids and awards committee to speed up the government-to-government procurement of 250,000 metric tons of rice to replenish government buffer stocks.
President Rodrigo Duterte earlier directed NFA to immediately import the needed stocks as consumers continued to clamor for the P27- and P32-per-kilo NFA rice.
Aquino said the President wants government to have buffer stocks good for 60 days.
“As a long-time responsible and responsive leader, he knows that government should always be ready to effectively address any contingency,” Aquino said.
But, as a policy, he said, government would only import the deficiency in local production.