FOOD-SECURITY advocates warned President Aquino against his administration’s decision to devolve the fundamental functions of the National Food Authority (NFA), which they fear will lead to massive importation of rice by the private sector.
The Task Force Food Sovereignty (TFFS) expressed fear that the move will only lead to overimportation and smuggling of rice that will adversely affect rice trading and impact the agriculture sector, particularly rice farmers.
Arze Glipo, lead convener of TFFS, issued the warning over the weekend amid reports by the Commission on Audit that the “PSF [private sector-financed importation], as implemented, effectively legalized smuggling,” resulting in billions of pesos in losses and debts for the agency that now amount to P177 billion.
Glipo said it would be irrational of the government to maintain such arrangement and called on President Aquino to immediately revert rice importation to the NFA.
TFFS also asked the President to put to task NFA Administrator Lito Banayo, Budget Secretary Florencio Abad and the Asian Development Bank for pushing the transfer of the function of rice importation to the private sector, a decision, she said, that is obviously against the interest of the public and the government.
The PSF, the report said, was marked by irregularities, including the creation of an uneven playing field among rice traders and fictitious companies that submitted the import bids.
Glipo asked why the government still pushed for the privatization of rice imports early this year when it was already evident that it was incurring huge liabilities for such arrangement.
The TFFS also expressed shock over the practice of giving rebates to PSF importers who already enjoy selling rice at “commercial prices and keep the profits entirely to themselves, duty- and tax-free.”
“The practice of giving rebates as part of incentives for delivering the staple early does not only deprive the NFA of revenues amid its huge debts; it also ‘kills’ the small-scale farmers who are no longer subsidized by the government and cannot compete with rice traders,” Glipo said.
“The devolution of NFA’s functions and the refund of service fee mean that the government is now keener on subsidizing profit-oriented importers than our poor farmers,” she added.
In January Abad said the government might shut down the agency as three of its four functions might be devolved, limiting the role of the government to “simply perform the function of a buyer of last resort.”
He said NFA’s subsidy function “can be best done by the Department of Social Welfare and Development [DSWD] through the conditional-cash transfer program.”
The function of rice procurement will be done by the private sector. The regulatory function on trading can be transferred to a unit in the Department of Agriculture.
According to the audit report, the NFA returned about P298 million of the total P400-million service fee to the 18 companies.
Of these 18 importers, 10 came from Pangasinan. They were identified as Sta. Rosa Farm Products Corp., Pure Feeds Corp., Longos Proper MPC, Hillside MPC, Unzad MPC, Cabaritan MPC, La Tupiguera MPC, Pasileng Sur MPC, Eastern Binalonan MPC and D’Highlight Agri-Business MPC.
The eight importers were from Cebu. They were Radegonda Vallejo, Chevy Bacaltos, Edisa Cabuenas, Jugy Obando, Jerome Tan, Othoniel Acquiatan, Marivic Ventura and Glenn Ernesto Pacana.
“We reiterate the urgent need to reverse the country’s rice policies to attain rice self-sufficiency. The government should focus more on improving local rice production by giving comprehensive support to small and procuring more palay from farmers,” Glipo said.-- Jonathan L. Mayuga
