Daily TribuneAfter conducting an initial investigation by our investigators, they recommended that the preventive suspension be lifted on the warehouse supervisors in Iloilo, Antique, Cabanatuan, and NCR. That’s about 23.
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Twenty-three of the 141 National Food Authority officials and personnel suspended by the Office of the Ombudsman over the questioned sale of buffer rice stock have gotten a reprieve as they were stricken off the suspension list.
Ombudsman Samuel Martires on Thursday said he lifted the suspension order on the NFA warehouse supervisors, including those in the National Capital Region, after graft probers found an error on the list submitted to his office by the Department of Agriculture based on the NFA’s data.
According to Martires, the NFA said that they thought the list the DA asked for was about the Task Force for El Niño.
“I listened to Congress during the hearing. I don’t know who explained this to Chairman (Mark) Enverga because they denied it at first, the Department of Agriculture denied it, and the NFA denied that our list came from them,” the Ombudsman said.
“If there is an error in that list, that’s not our fault. I have no idea who duped us,” Martires said. “After conducting an initial investigation by our investigators, they recommended that the preventive suspension be lifted on the warehouse supervisors in Iloilo, Antique, Cabanatuan, and NCR. That’s about 23.”
Aside from the 23, Martires earlier withdrew the suspension order against one NFA employee. A separate investigation is also underway to identify the person behind the erroneous list, according to the Ombudsman.
“The only question we have is, if that is the list of the El Niño task force, then why did the staff members include the names of those who have already passed away? What’s the purpose? Are you fooling the secretary of agriculture?” Martires asked.
Martires was referring to DA Secretary Francisco Tiu Laurel.
NFA officials and personnel, including administrator Roderico Bioco and newly designated NFA officer-in-charge Piolito Santos, were slapped with a six-month preventive suspension by the Ombudsman earlier this month over the questioned sale of 75,000 bags of “aging” and “deteriorating” rice buffer stock to private rice traders.
The Ombudsman flagged irregularities in the sale after it found that the supplies, which were allegedly re-bagged by the traders and sold at a higher price, were discovered to be still fit for human consumption.
Last week, the House Committee on Agriculture and Food kicked off its probe into the botched rice sale, learning that not only 75,000 bags were sold to private firms but over 150,000 bags.
Laurel, who took over the helm at NFA temporarily, vowed not to tolerate any form of corruption within the DA and to hold those involved in the anomalous sale accountable.
President Ferdinand Marcos Jr., who once headed the DA, had also pledged that the government would not merely look into the improper sale but also examine how it was executed without the approval of concerned agencies.
Martires stressed that “the lifting of the suspension was not because of the MR (motion for reconsideration),” which was filed by 108 NFA officials.
