The launch of a congressional probe into the alleged irregularities in the sale of rice buffer stock unearthed that not only 75,000 bags were sold to private firms but over 150,000.

This was confirmed by Quezon Rep. Mark Enverga, the chairperson of the House Committee on Agriculture and Food, in a radio interview on Friday, citing no less than the suspended administrator of the National Food Administration, Roderico Bioco.

Enverga’s panel kicked off its probe on Thursday into the “improper” sale of 75,000 bags of “aging” and “deteriorating” rice buffer sold by NFA to private rice traders at a price much lower than the prevailing price of P1,250 per bag.

The supply, which was found to be still fit for human consumption, was allegedly re-bagged by the traders and sold the same at a higher price.

“We have discovered that there are documents that point to exactly 130,000 [bags were sold]. However, as the inquiry went on, administrator Ron Biocon eventually admitted that it was 157,000 [bags] in total profit terms,” Enverga disclosed.

The chairman, however, said NFA officer-in-charge administrator Piolito Santos pledged to the committee that some of the sold buffer stock, which remained in the NFA warehouse, would be put on hold pending the investigation.

The panel, according to Enverga, is one with the Ombudsman’s position that the transaction was indeed plagued by anomalies.

Ombudsman Samuel Martires meted out a six-month preventive suspension against Bioco and 138 other NFA officials over the alleged anomalous sale of the massive rice buffer stock, which Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr., immediately carried out on Monday.

Laurel, who temporarily takes charge of the NFA, vowed not to tolerate any form of corruption within the DA and said a special panel of internal investigators had been formed to determine the culpability and to prevent the recurrence of the blunder.

In a separate radio interview on Friday, Martires, who personally served a subpoena to the NFA, said that some of the suspended officials went on leave.

“They cannot take a leave during the period of preventive suspension,” he said, noting that the involved officials cannot evade accountability even by going on leave from work.

“If there are officials who are preventively suspended with prior leave, approved leave, that leave has been terminated upon the receipt of the preventive suspension,” Martires added.

Bioco faced the congressional probe, contending there were no irregularities in the sale of the NFA rice buffer stock.

Members of the panel, however, did not buy Bioco’s explanation and posit that the NFA chief indeed manipulated the transaction.