MANILA, Philippines -- Reacting to allegations that biofuel contributed to the rice crisis, Senator Juan Miguel Zubiri said that critics were ?barking on the wrong tree.?

Zubiri addressed the issue raised by militant groups that rice lands could be converted to plant biofuels like ethanol and jathropa.

?It is wrong to blame the rice crisis on the [planting of] biofuels,? Zubiri said in a forum at the Club Filipino Wednesday. ?Not one square meter of rice land was converted for biofuels.?

Zubiri said he was formulating guidelines on planting biofuels that would include:

? banning the planting of biofuel in irrigated and highly-productive arable lands;
? limiting production of bioethanol gasoline replacement to sugar-producing districts utilizing only the excess production of sugar amounting to 300,000 tons;
? utilizing four million hectares of idle denuded mountain lands to plant biofuels;
? promoting feedstocks that would not compete with food.

Zubiri also stressed that, ?Biofuels should not be planted on lands already used for planting rice and corn.?

?Rest assured that we will not sacrifice food security over fuel,? he added.

Zubiri also criticized oil companies which, he said, were ?profiting from the misery of others.?

Taking a line popularized by Rodolfo ?Jun? Lozada, Jr., key witness in the national broadband network controversy, Zubiri said that oil companies should ?moderate their greed,? when it came to the continuous rise of oil prices.