AKBAYAN Senator Risa Hontiveros said the Duterte administration’s “policy paralysis” resulted in a rice crisis as Senator Cynthia Villar scored National Food Authority’s officials for not being proactive in buying rice from local farmers.
Hontiveros said different government agencies failed to arrive at a consensus over a unified policy to address the rice problem.
“There is obviously policy paralysis on the part of the government. The agencies involved in working on this issue are in complete disarray,” she said.
Because of this, Hontiveros said it was not surprising if hoarders and profiteers were able to exploit this chaotic situation, undermine the country’s food security and the stability of supply and the price of rice.
Hontiveros said that based on the reports by different stakeholders, the alleged lack of NFA rice supply could be attributed to the government’s failure to buy domestically-produced rice and import additional supply.
“In both aspects, the government was paralyzed into inaction. Aside from the lack of a consolidated policy framework to address the issue, it was also hampered by internal bickering over competing interests,” Hontiveros said.
Hontiveros pushed for a five-point response to address the rice crisis.
The following are:
1.Mandatory buying of palay at P19.00 per kilo to help smale-scale farmers and augment the country’s emergency rice reserves,
2. Calibrated importation of rice that balances the objectives of lowering rice prices while providing protection to and ensuring the competitiveness of Filipino farmers.
Macon Ramos-Araneta
3. Creation of an anti-hoarding, anti-profiteering taskforce led by the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and the Philippine Competition., 4-Summon the Food and Nutrition Research Institute (FNRI) and National Nutrition Council (NNC) to provide updates on the consequence of high rice prices on health indicators of children in poor families;
5. Design and make financial provisions for the safety net of farmers and public investment support for the rice sector ahead of the removal of limits on the volume of rice that may be imported once the country is compelled to abide by the World Trade Organization’s agreements.
During the resumption of the Senate committees on agriculture and food, ways and means hearings which she chaired, Villar accused NFA of selling rice to traders despite the low supply of NFA rice.
NFA Administrator Jayson Aquino confirmed this but clarified that they only sold old stocks of rice from years 2014 to 2016.
But Villar immediately questioned why the rice stocks in 2014 were still in 2017.
She said a lot of rice supply was rotting when a lot of people had no rice to eat. Macon Ramos-Araneta
