Sacked Cabinet exec denies it was her decision to extend rice importation

Former Cabinet Undesecretary Maia Chiara Halmen Valdez denied Saturday that it was her own decision to extend the rice importation of the government.

But Vadez said she would “respect and bow to the will” of President Rodrigo Duterte.

On Wednesday Duterte said he had fired Valdez because she defied the decision to put the rice importation scheme on hold.

Valdez is from the Office of the Cabinet Secretary.

“Into the extension of the deadline of the rice importation through the programmed Minimum Access Volume (MAV), in as much as I would like to take credit for it, such decision was never mine to make,” Valdez said in an official statement.

The former Palace official said the Nation Food Authority (NFA) is an inter-agency led governemnt-owned and controlled corporation (GOCC). This means that NFA should act in accordance with its highest policy making body – the National Food Authority Council (NFAC), she said.

The NFAC is composed of the finance secretary, the director general of the National Economic and Development Authority (NEDA), the governor of the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas, a representative from the Office of the President;, the president of Landbank of the Philippines, the chair of the Development Bank of the Philippines (DBP); and of course, a farmer sector representative.

According to Valdez, each of these 10 council members is entitled to one vote and they arrive at decisions based on the number of votes cast by its 10 members.

“Being a mere alternate of the CabSec, I only cast the vote of my principal. I am not a member of the NFAC,” she said. “I neither have voting rights nor authority, much less, an influence over these high ranking officials whose integrity, wisdom, and competence are far greater than their respective positions.”

She said the NFAC “unanimously agreed” to extend the rice imporation of the government.

“Please note that except for the NFA administrator, who DELIBERATELY refused to attend NFAC meetings, the extension of the deadline of MAV from February 28 to March 31 was UNANIMOUSLY agreed and voted upon by ALL the members of the Council,” she said.

“In sum, the decision therefor was made by the NFAC, as a collegiate body,” she added.

Valdez said it was NFA Administrator Jason Aquino who publicly defied the NFAC decision.

“That being said, the NFA administrator, after deliberately absenting him from the NFAC meetings where he should have raised and defended his position has opted to publicly defy the NFAC’s decision as though he is superior over all the other Council members,” she said.

Valdez claimed that Aquino insisted on a goverment-to-government “undertaking to boost the NFA’s buffer-stock, instead of procuring palay from our local farmers, despite the fact that harvest season has already begun.”

“Bakit di mo bilhin palay ng mga magsasaka natin na may P4 billion ang NFA para diyan?” she said.

(“Why wouldn’t you buy the unhusked rice from our farmers when the NFA has P4 billion allotted ffor that?”)

She said cited NFAC’s consensus that “a state-led importation means additional debt to be incurred by already debt-saddled NFA and ultimately be paid by the government through the taxpayers’ money.”

Valdez defended the decision of the NFAC for a rivate-led importation since it would “not only spare the government from spending and incurring additional liabilities, but would even benefit therefrom since taxes and duties have already been deposited to the government coffers.”

“Despite the result of the discussion made by the NFAC, the NFA administrator has bypassed the Council, and even went directly to the President requesting that there be G2G importation of rice with total volume of one million metric tons,” she said.

Valdez accused Agriculture Secretary Emmanuel “Manny” Piñol and Aquino of meddling into the affairs of the Office of the Cabinet Secretary.

“On their desperate attempt to convince the President to resort to G2G, the agriculture secretary who has been meddling on the functions and affairs of the OCS, and the NFA administrator have made it appear as if there is a shortage of rice in the country, causing alarm and possible upward movement in the prices of commercial rice,” she said.

She said, it was not for Piñol and Aquino to evaluate the rice stock of the country, which is a function given by law to the NFAC and the National Food Security Committee,” she said.

“The DA’s function is to ensure that there be sufficient agricultural produce from our local farmers, but he probably does not know the meaning of his position, and has been excessively busy tinkering on other offices,” she said.

She said all decisions and resolutions of the NFAC and the OCS have been forwarded to the President through the Office of the Special Assistant to the President (OSAP).

The NFAC members, she said, had been requesting for a dialogue with the President through OSAP but it was not granted.

“To date, it appears to us that this request, along with the documents submitted by the OCS, which were personally handed down by Cabsec to the head of OSAP, have either failed to reach the President or have been tampered,” she said.

“This leads us wondering, how come Jason Aquino and Emmanuel Pinol, were able to get direct access to the President, when the Cabsec has been trying to get through the President from the gatekeeper (OSAP), but to no avail?” she added.

Duterte has said that he doesn’t want to import rice at the moment because it’s harvest season for farmers. /atm