THE National Food Authority will now proceed with the importation of 250,000 metric tons of rice to augment the depleting supply of cheap rice in the market, following the verbal order of President Rodrigo Duterte to NFA Administrator Jason Aquino.
The President ordered the NFA chief to ignore the NFA Council, an 18-member body that consists of representatives from financial institutions and other related agencies, and to push through with the rice importation.
“I told him (Aquino), to ignore the council, go ahead and make the importations,’” the President said in a speech during a dinner concert in Pasay City.
During the event in Pasay, the President warned not to “put people on a very unsettling environment” because of the reported rice shortage.
The President earlier met with rice traders in Malacañang where he asked them to sell cheap rice to the public and assured them of his support to improve their rice production to solve rice shortage, if any.
NFA rice is at P27 to P32 a kilo, while commercial rice costs P36 to P65 a kilo.
Reports on the rice shortage spread last March when the NFA said it would temporarily stop issuing NFA rice to accredited retailers due to low supply.
However, conflicting government reports on the status of rice supply in Metro Manila have alarmed the public, prompting the President to step in and ordered both the NFA and its council to stop issuing statements.
Aquino said the NFA was set to import 250,000 metric tons of rice under the government-to-government (G2G) scheme.
There has been a confusion on the fate of the NFA and the NFA Council after two Cabinet officials gave conflicting statements Friday on whether these would be abolished or not.
In a radio interview early Friday, Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel Piñol said President Duterte disclosed his decision to abolish the NFA Council during a dialog with rice traders at Malacañang Thursday night.
“He announced that he has abolished the NFA Council and that he would transfer NFA and other agriculture-related agencies and return these to the Department of Agriculture,” Piñol said.
But Presidential Spokesman Harry Roque clarified that the NFA and the NFA Council would not be abolished, nor would these be returned to the DA.
“The 18-member NFA Council would not be abolished contrary to earlier reports. The President
expressed his intent to place the National Food Authority under the Office of the President,” Roque said.
The President, Roque said, also appeared poised to clip the powers of Aquino by stripping him of the power to approve rice importation.
“The President is considering the approval of rice importation to be centralized under the Office of DA Undersecretary Bernadette Romulo-Puyat, subject to the review of the Office of the Executive Secretary,” the Palace spokesman added.
By placing the NFA under the Office of the President, Duterte will now have a more direct hand on issues concerning the agency.
NFA Council chairman Laeoncio Evasco earlier slammed the NFA for creating an artificial rice shortage with its statement on supposed zero buffer stock.
As this developed, Roque said rice traders pledged to give at least 700,000 sacks of rice to replenish the NFA stocks sold at P38 per kilo.
“This will allow retailers to sell rice to the public at P39 per kilo,” Roque said. The lowest price for rice at wet markets these days is around P44 per kilo.
The special pricing will be given to retailers by rice traders starting next week until the supply of low-priced NFA rice comes in, he added.