Agriculture Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel Jr. took the helm at the National Food Authority on Monday after the Office of the Ombudsman ordered the suspension of two more executives of the food agency.

This was because one of them, Piolito Santos, who had just been appointed NFA officer in charge by Laurel, was belatedly included in the Ombudsman suspension order, along with acting department manager for operations Jonathan Yazon.

Last 4 March, the Department of Agriculture implemented the preventive suspension order of the Ombudsman against 139 NFA officials and employees while it probed the questioned sale of its rice buffer stock to private firms without the benefit of a bidding.

As this developed, Laurel installed Director IV Larry Lacson as OIC deputy administrator to ensure the agency’s uninterrupted service.

“We want to stabilize the situation at the NFA following the events of last week,” Laurel said. “We want to help NFA employees during these challenging times to continue to provide uninterrupted service, especially during the harvest season.”

Agriculture spokesperson Assistant Secretary Arnel de Mesa had said that among the 139 suspended NFA personnel were 99 warehouse supervisors, 26 branch managers, and 12 regional managers. The highest ranking officials suspended were NFA administrator Roderico Bioco and assistant administrator of operations John Robert Hermano.

Ombudsman Samuel Martires personally served a subpoena on the NFA last Thursday requesting a list of the agency’s warehouses involved in the reported anomalous sale of rice at P25 per kilo, or roughly the same price it was acquired as palay from farmers.

The traders, in turn, allegedly sold the rice at P50 per kilo. An earlier report said the sale involved 75,000 bags but a congressional hearing pegged the volume of rice involved at 150,000 bags.

“I was forced to bring a subpoena to them myself because, since Monday, it seemed like [as I was] assessing the situation, it was like it (the subpoena) was being passed around,” Martires had said.

“The central office said the document was in the regions. The regions said the regional documents were in the central office. Who was telling the truth? I don’t know if something was being hidden or what,” he added.