‘Poor, disaster victims will be the biggest losers,’ exec says

By Ben Serrano,
Correspondent
 

BUTUAN City — Filipinos who can’t afford commercial rice sold in market and immediate rice supply to calamity victims stand to be the biggest loser should the National Food Authority be abolished or reduced to regulatory function, an NFA official here said.

In an interview yesterday, this city’s NFA manager Anthony Agdon said there are about 30 regular and job order employees in his office alone and about 300 NFA workers across Caraga Region who will stand to lose their jobs if the NFA will be abolished.

Agdon said NFA management and personnel at the central office in Manila also expressed dismay and reacted to the proposal to abolish or reduce the agency to a regulatory body.

In a press statement from central office Manila, NFA managers claimed that nearly 4,000 NFA employees nationwide will be affected once plans to abolish NFA pushes through.

“The National Food Authority losses due debts that prompted proposals for it abolition, are actually the cost of government’s social responsibility to make rice — basic staple of Filipinos — available, affordable and accessible especially to the victims of calamities, the poor, the low-income families, and those living in remote areas of the country,” the NFA statement reads.

NFA finance managers clarified that the reported P165 billion debt has actually been trimmed down to P158.9 billion as of Aug. 31. Nevertheless, this debt, accumulated over the years, represents the costs that the agency incurred in fulfilling its mandate of stabilizing the price and supply of rice at both the farm-gate and consumer level.

“The NFA, on behalf of the national government, has to buy high from the farmers for them to get a fair return on their palay production investment, and sell low to consumers to ensure that those who are short on funds will have a chance to buy good quality rice at an affordable price,” the NFA statement reads further.

Agdon said the poor could hardly afford commercial rice sold at P53 per kilo compared to their rice which is sold at only P27 per kilo.

He said local government units would always seek NFA’s immediate help to feed evacuees of armed conflicts, natural and man-made calamities.

“At times, rice supplies in hundreds or thousands of sacks are released to local government units are all on credit and would not be paid in months, if not even years,” said Agdon.

Agdon added that without the NFA, local governments will be forced to go to private commercial rice traders.

“We don’t know if private rice traders can extend long credit line to the local governments in one or two years (at) the most,” he pointed out.

Agdon recalled what happened on calamities brought about flooding due typhoons which hit this city and Agusan del Norte in the past saying it was only the NFA and its personnel who braved the bad weather, flooded roads and delivered rice so they could read far-flung areas where usually the poor and underprivileged reside.

Buying rice at a high price from local farmers and sell it at a low price to the public, Agdon explained, has been the policy of government in fulfilling its social responsibility to ensure food security while stabilizing supply and price of rice. This is the mandate of NFA, he argued.

“Although NFA is a government corporation, this policy makes it impossible for the agency to profit from its mandated activities,” said Agdon.