A day after it was launched, the provincial government of Cebu has ordered the temporary suspension of rice selling for P20 per kilo, citing the alarming and abrupt increase of those who were included on the official indigent list.

Cebu Governor Gwendolyn Garcia disclosed that a certain town had listed at least 9,000 indigents contrary to the official list from the Department of Social Welfare and Development which only had 6,000 people listed.

While the governor refused to name the municipality, she revealed that the indigents has increased to more than 303,000 from the DSWD official list of 199,000 households only.

To recall, the Sugbo Mercado Barato or Cebu cheap market was launched in Talisay City with House Speaker Martin Romualdez as guest and one of its major component is the P20 per kilo price of rice being sold.

"The suspension is to allow corrections to be made in the final list of deserving recipients, after local governments submitted lists that combined, exceeded by 100,000 household beneficiaries," Garcia said.

"I will not mention which local government unit, but there's one LGU where the DSWD identified 6,000 indigents but the list that was sent to us was 9,000. That's arguable, I think, but I am bound by the NHTS-PR National Household Targeting System for Poverty Reduction," Garcia said.

The governor said that the provincial government has allocated P100 million for the purchase of 80,000 bags of NFA rice and another P100 million for the purchase of commercial rice that will be sold at lower prices simultaneously.

She added that each bag of NFA rice costs P1,250, or P25 per kilo.

The province absorbs the loss of P5 for every kilo of NFA rice sold to selected beneficiaries, which amounts to an initial loss of P20 million from the P100-million budget and each poor household with the QR-coded ID card can avail of the P20 per kilo NFA rice up to a maximum of only five kilos a week at the SMB venue in the respective towns and cities except the cities of Cebu and Lapu-Lapu which are not under administration of the province.

"There are poor people, but the poorest ones should be prioritized because the supply is limited," Garcia said.

"We are resuming possibly this week. We sent out an advisory to the mayors to suspend the selling until we shall have counterchecked and revalidated the list," she added.