Senator Cynthia Villar on Monday warned the National Food Authority (NFA) that she will report to no less than President Duterte should it fails to buy palay from local rice farmers.
Villar gave NFA officials the ultimatum during the Senate finance subcommittee B’s deliberation of the proposed 2020 budgets of the Department of Agriculture (DA) and its attached agencies. The senator, as vice chairman of the Senate finance committee, presided the hearing.
Lawmakers were raising the proposals to use the rice subsidy of the government’s Pantawid Pamilyang Pilipino Program (4Ps) to help Filipino rice farmers amid the declining farm gate prices of local rice when Villar, for the nth time, took to task the NFA for hoarding millions of sacks of imported rice in its warehouses.
Villar, who also chairs the Senate committee on agriculture and food, insisted that the NFA should be buying rice from local rice farmers for selling in the markets.
She said she and DA Acting Secretary William Dar have agreed to require the NFA to regularly update the Senate about its palay purchase from local farmers and its sale of affordable rice.
“Nag-usap na kami ni Secretary Dar. Iha, you report to us every two weeks ano binili mo at ano binenta mo. At kung magkano ang nagawa mo doon. Kung magkano ang binenta mo sa consumers at magkano ang binenta mo sa farmers. Every two weeks mag-report ka sa amin,” Villar told NFA Administrator Judy Carol Dansal who was also in the budget hearing.
“Kasi ‘di mo pinagbibili ‘yong laman ng bodega mo. ‘Pag di mo pinagbili, eh mabubulok ‘yon doon tapos sasabihin niyo na naman, ipagbibilli niyo sa trader nang mura below [production] cost.”
“‘Wag niyong gagawin ‘yon. Pag nakita ko yon, pupunta na ko kay President Duterte, she warned.
Villar bared she already went to Executive Secretary Salvador Medialdea to raise the NFA’s supposed lapses in its mandate.
Dar, in the hearing, said the DA is already “looking at various options” to help local rice farmers cope with the surge of imported rice brought about by the new rice tariffication law because the NFA, with P7 billion, can buy only 2.8 percent of the local production.
But Villar countered Dar, saying the NFA has P17 billion in its pocket to pay for local palay.
Of the fund, P4 billion is allocated for the salaries and benefits of NFA employees while P6 billion is allotted to pay for the NFA’s debts.
Villar said the NFA should be using the remaining P7 billion as a “working capital” to increase funds for buying local rice. (Vanne Terrazola)
