Even after the signing of the Rice Tariffication Law (RA 11203) last Feb. 14 which revises the mandate of the National Food Authority in the stabilization of the market price of rice, the agency continues to bring affordable rice to remote areas and poor communities nationwide.
According to NFA OIC-Administrator Tomas R. Escarez, the agency continues to conduct its Tagpuan Rice Response Delivery program, started in June 2018, to bring rice to far-flung barangays and urban poor areas, on top of those served by NFA’s accredited retailers.
“The main target beneficiaries of Tagpuan are indigenous communities and urban poor areas who do not have easy access to government-subsidized rice. Tagpuan programs conducted by our NFA branches directly bring rice to these communities through mobile stores and it is done nationwide in almost every province,” Escarez said.
“Based on our data, from January to February this year, NFA had already conducted 1,024 Tagpuan activities and were able to sell 32,712 bags of rice to 274,091 beneficiaries at P27.00 per kilogram,” he added.
Although the rice tariffication law became effective last March 5, Escarez said the NFA will still implement this program until its imported rice stocks are exhausted.
“Hopefully, when the Implementing Rules of the new law is approved, it will still allow the NFA to sell affordable, good quality rice to the poor. More than 10-million poor Filipinos rely on NFA rice for their daily consumption. Our customers say NFA rice at P27/kg is comparable to the P38-P42/kg commercial rice sold in the market,” Escarez said.
Last year, the NFA also conducted 4,161 Tagpuan activities and sold 250,251 bags to more than 2.24-million beneficiaries in just six months since the Tagpuan program was started.