Senator Imee Marcos on Thursday urged the Department of Agriculture to utilize the P140 million fund allocated last year to address the public's outcry against the soaring prices of onion.

In a statement, Imee, who chairs the Senate Committee on Cooperatives, said the DA should tap the "neglected source of funding" to expedite the harvest and direct purchase of locally grown onions for delivery to Metro Manila.

"Activate the Php140-million fund from the 2021 budget, which was realigned for the DA's Food Mobilization Program this year," she said.

Imee also slammed the DA, concurrently chaired by her brother President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., for its plan to raise the suggested retail price of red onions to control runaway prices that have reached P720 per kilo.

"Raising the SRP for onions from P170 to P250 per kilo only invites more ridicule, with market prices now more than four times the present SRP," she said.

On Wednesday, the senator initiated the direct purchase of up to 300,000 kilograms of onions from Nueva Ecija farmers' cooperatives whose grants she had sponsored from the DA's Kadiwa program.

On the same day, she also contacted Metro Manila mayors to add Kadiwa outlets in wet markets and to map out the routes for Kadiwa rolling stores.

Imee said that, so far, she has gained the support of the local governments of Las Piñas, Mandaluyong, Quezon City, Manila, Makati, and Valenzuela.

"I am confident that more onions can be sold at Kadiwa prices on 30 and 31 December," she added.

The provinces of Ilocos Norte, Ilocos Sur, La Union, Pangasinan, Batanes, Nueva Ecija, Nueva Vizcaya, Tarlac, and Oriental Mindoro will continue their onion harvests until February," she pointed out.

"A strategy for their purchase and delivery should already be ironed out. Down the road, a more efficient system of monitoring agricultural output must be put in place, or we will always be at the mercy of hoarders and smugglers in cahoots with corrupt officials at the DA," the senator said.