Senator Raffy Tulfo criticizes the sale of rice stocks by the National Food Authority to certain commercial traders.
In his privilege speech in the Senate, Tulfo lamented how the NFA quality assurance officer declared the good inventory of rice to be in bad condition to reduce its price in the market.
Tulfo revealed the NFA could sell 150,000 bags of good rice to private traders while tightening on the purchase requests of local government units.
“This is not the mandate of the NFA,” he said.
Citing the Rice Tariffication Act, Tulfo said the NFA should maintain a buffer stock of rice for the country and is not allowed to sell to traders.
Tulfo unveiled the alleged scheme wherein the NFA will buy unmilled rice or palay for P24 a kilo.
A P2-per-kilo subsidy from the Palay Marketing Assistance Program for Legislators and Local Government Units (PALLGU) is added to the NFA's buying price.
“So the NFA gets the unmilled rice at P26 price. They will then have this milled and they will pay it in kind or with rice mill by-products,” Tulfo said.
The NFA Office of the Administrator would then look for stocks they can sell, he added.
He further said the NFA sales officers were told to identify the stocks and instruct the quality assurance officer to issue a laboratory analysis report to declare satisfactory stocks as no longer in good condition.
The high-ranking NFA officials will then ask the sales officers to negotiate the selling of rice to private millers. Then, if the deal is closed, they would issue rice sales to the millers using the lab report indicating that the rice was no longer fit for human consumption so that its price could be driven down.
Tulfo mentioned the suspension of 139 NFA officials and staff over the questionable sale of 150,000 bags of rice.
“The said suspension stemmed from the sale of 150,000 bags of NFA rice to traders as authorized by Administrator Roderico R. Bioco and Acting Special Assistant Administrator Engr. John Robert Hermano. This sale was without the approval of the NFA Council!,” he said.
Tulfo likewise mentioned how the province of Isabela requested to buy 10,000 bags of rice but was only given 3,000 by the NFA
“Grabe na ang garapalan sa NFA. Imagine, nagbenta ng 150,000 bags of good rice tapos yung mga nangangailangan na ahensya tinitipid nila. Ito po ang ginawa nila sa probinsya ng Isabela (The impunity in the NFA is too much. Imagine, they sold 150,000 bags of good rice and then scrimped on the requests of needy agencies. This is what they did to the province of Isabela),” he said.
Tulfo lambasted NFA for prioritizing the private traders.
“This is contrary to to the PALLGU program where LGUs even subsidize itong pagbili ng NFA ng palay sa mga farmers (the NFA’s purchae of rice from farmers),” Tulfo said.
Following Tulfo’s remarks, the Department of Agriculture (DA) said it is eyeing the possibility of recommending an independent laboratory to test the quality of NFA rice.
“There could be ways, for example, an independent laboratory to do the analysis at hindi na NFA para maging mas independent (so that it will be independent from the NFA)…But that will be part of future recommendations later,” DA spokesperson Arnel de Mesa said in a television interview on Tuesday.
De Mesa likewise bared that the government is also considering the review of existing policies of the NFA.
He noted that the NFA Council serves as the agency policy governing body.
“So all their actions are guided by resolutions. So we're looking if the guidelines issued by the Council from 2019 to today were followed,” he added.