The National Food Authority (NFA) regional office here is still waiting for requests from local government units (LGUs) willing to distribute the PHP20 per kilogram rice to poor families.
“I think our local governments are still finalizing schemes on how to allocate the PHP6.50 subsidy per kilogram of rice,” NFA Eastern Visayas Regional Manager May Sara Sabarre told the Philippine News Agency Thursday.
Sabarre added they already have discussions with some local governments before the May 12 elections.
The PHP6.50 represents half of the PHP13 per kilo subsidy of the government. The other half will be shouldered by the Department of Agriculture through its attached agency, Food Terminal Inc.
Ideally, the NFA rice is sold at PHP33 per kilogram, but President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. directed government agencies to sell it for PHP20, under what is now called the “Benteng Bigas Meron (BBM) Na” program launched on May 1.
Under the program, indigent families are eligible to buy maximum of 10 kilos per week or a total of 40 kilos a month.
Visayas was chosen for the pilot run of the rice program due to its higher-than-average poverty rate, which exceeds the national average of 10.9 percent. In Eastern Visayas, the poverty incidence is at 20.3 percent.
Currently, the regional NFA has 188,927 bags of rice stored in 19 warehouses. The inventory will last for a week if the government is the only source of staple food.
Sabarre assured that rice to be sold under the PHP20 per kilo program will be of good quality and harvested in the past two to three months.