An investigation into the questioned sale of repacked National Food Authority rice has touched off a finger-pointing within the agency, a Department of Agriculture official said yesterday.

Assistant Secretary Arnel de Mesa, the DA spokesperson, said in a TV interview that the panel created by Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel to investigate the matter has started reviewing documents and conducting interviews.

The NFA rice was allegedly repacked and sold at P50 per kilo by traders who acquired the same without bidding at P25 per kilo. The NFA reportedly acquired the rice as palay for P23 a kilo.

“Although no deadline has been set, we hope the inquiry can be done quickly, and they can provide a review and report to our secretary,” De Mesa said.

He added: “If an irregularity is found, that will definitely be acted upon by our secretary, no matter who is behind it.”

De Mesa said some people inside the NFA were passing the buck.

Rice watchdog Bantay Bigas said the alleged anomaly was rooted in Republic Act 11203, or the Rice Tariffication Law, which they said removed the NFA mandate to sell subsidized rice.

“Instead of selling it at a low price to the millers, they should have sold it to the Filipino people because our consumers are looking for cheap rice,” Bantay Bigas spokesperson Cathy Estavillo told DAILY TRIBUNE.

“Under RA 11203, the NFA is prohibited from selling rice. The NFA is not allowed to sell in the market, so if we look at it, the root cause is, of course, RA 11203 or the Rice Liberalization Law that was passed in 2019, which removed the mandate of the NFA to sell subsidized rice,” she said.

“That’s the effect of a liberalized industry. You let the product set its price. The government is not allowed to interfere. That’s what was done, so the NFA is just for buffer stocking,” she said.

Estavillo said the government must focus on strengthening local palay production.

In a statement on Thursday, the NFA said that among its mandates is keeping and disposing of 99.9 percent of stocks in good and consumable condition.

“The rice we are selling are all sold at the mandated selling price of P25 per kilo although aging stocks need to be remilled before they could be released to consumers,” it said, noting that freshly milled stocks are reserved for calamity relief, and leftovers shall be “disposed for inventory management purpose” as per NFA guidelines.

The NFA said distress selling is the period after three months that would require the agency to remill, “which entails additional processing, logistics, and recovery of loss costs to make the stocks acceptable to consumers.”

“To avoid these costs, NFA can opt to sell at the highest mandated price to qualified commercial buyers on as-is, where-is, no-selection, and first-in, first-out basis (and first-come, first-served basis, meaning the first buyer gets to buy the oldest stocks),” the statement read.

“In the future, when the NFA has modernized, distress selling could be avoided as the shelf life would be longer, and there would be more time to allow for the disposition of the stocks in the best condition for the preferred purpose — calamity relief,” it said.

The NFA said its council allows its management to dispose of aging stocks up to 10 percent lower than the mandated price and damaged stocks for at least P6.50 per kilo.

“The current NFA management was able to responsibly dispose of its rice stocks to government accounts by stretching the shelf life to the maximum, minimizing the sale of residual volumes to other accounts by implementing stricter guidelines and safeguards,” it added.