MEMBERS of the House Quinta “Murang Pagkain” super committee on Tuesday decried the alleged lack of urgency on the part of concerned agencies, including the Department of Agriculture (DA), Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and National Food Authority (NFA) to bring down rice prices.
In the course of the fifth hearing of the mega panel on the high prices of rice and other food items, members called out agency officials for their failure to submit a draft of a food security emergency declaration more than a week after President Ferdinand R. Marcos Jr. announced he favored such a pronouncement.
“The declaration of recommendation to declare a food security emergency umiikot na po ‘yung papel,” DA Undersecretary Christopher Morales informed the Murang Pagkain Committee chaired by Albay Rep. Joey Sarte Salceda.
Marikina City Rep. Stella Luz Quimbo then asked, “Ano pa ‘yung kulang?”
Morales replied, “We’re still waiting for the recommendation from the NPCC (National Price Coordinating Council) for the declaration. Yung paper po kasi I think umiikot nga.”
Salceda quipped, “Oh my God.”
Oriental Mindoro Rep. Arnan Panaligan lamented that concerned officials “have no sense of urgency.”
“Sabi nga ni Cong. Stella emergency, papaikutin pa ang papel. ‘Di ba pag may sunog emergency magpapa-alam pa ba ‘yung mga bumbero sa kanyang mga superior bago siya makaalis sa sitwasyon,” Panaligan said.
Panaligan urged DA to be “dynamic and aggressive” in the campaign to bring down food prices, particularly that of rice.
In Tuesday’s Murang Pagkain super committee hearing, NFA Administrator Larry Lacson said the law prohibits his agency to sell rice without a declaration of a food security emergency.
When the President issues such a declaration, Lacson said NFA would sell about 300,000 bags of “aging” stocks at P29 per kilo and up to 500,000 bags of “regular” stocks at a “subsidized price” of P38 per kilo.
He said the subsidy, recorded as a loss on the part of NFA, is P10 per kilo, without which the agency would sell its rice at P48.
The NFA chief’s statements prompted Salceda to comment, “So as of now, NFA is doing nothing. Whose fault is that? What did we do, why did we put ‘emergency’ in the law?”
Quimbo said she found the planned NFA subsidized selling price of P38 per kilo still high.
She informed the committee that in one barangay in Marikina, two retailers “were selling their stocks consistently at P39 per kilo.”
When she inquired from them, she was told that they buy their supply directly from rice millers in Bulacan and Nueva Ecija.
“Why can’t the Department of Agriculture do that?” Quimbo asked.
Salceda recalled that in a meeting attended by House members and Agriculture Sec. Francisco Tiu Laurel last month, Bulacan-based rice millers and traders committed to sell their stocks at P37 per kilo.
