BACOLOD CITY, Philippines?Senator Richard Gordon said Saturday the Senate Blue Ribbon Committee will look into the discovery of sacks of a white substance which can be turned into either shabu or explosives that were found in a shipment of rice imported by the National Food Authority from Vietnam.

Gordon, who chairs the committee, said there was something highly suspicious in the discovery of N-methylephedrine, which was later said to be ammonium sulfate, in a shipment of 77,000 bags of NFA rice from Vietnam to Bacolod City as it could be a move to raise funds for the elections.

Gordon, who was in Bacolod City Saturday, did not say who he suspected of raising funds but said a close watch on all large-scale shipments by the government should be closely monitored.

Gordon said local authorities should keep a close watch on the rice shipment that arrived in Bacolod on Tuesday to make sure that the misdeclared items that came with the rice are not switched.

The discovery of the crystalline substance was made by an NFA classifier and a warehouse man on Tuesday, according to NFA provincial manager Pablito Gemarino.

The following day, the Bureau of Customs in Bacolod City issued a hold order on a Vietnam-registered vessel, MW Trai Thien 66, its crew and its cargo of 77,000 bags of rice consigned to the NFA in the wake of the discovery of the bags of white crystalline substance.

The vessel, skippered by Bul Van Chin with the local shipping agent identified as Romeo Conlu Jr., came from Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam.

On Thursday, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency announced its agents found a total of 51 bags of N-methylephedrine in sacks labeled as NFA rice in the shipment. But on Saturday, PDEA officials in Manila announced there were only 48 bags found with the substance.

Negros media were baffled by the fact that while PDEA officials on Thursday evening and Friday morning confirmed the seized substance to be N-methylephedrine, later in the day they were saying it was ammonium sulfate.

Paul Ledesma, head of the PDEA in Western Visayas, said the earlier findings of N-methylephedrine were based on a Philippine National Police laboratory test in Negros Occidental but a later test done by the PDEA in Manila showed it to be ammonium sulfate.

N-methylepehedrine can be processed into an ingredient in manufacturing shabu (methamphetamine hydrochloride). Ammonium sulphate, on the other hand, is a fertilizer component but can also be used in producing explosives.

The rice from Vietnamese was part of the rice importation that the Department of Agriculture announced in December last year.

An announcement on Dec. 14, 2009 on the DA website said the NFA had given the notice of awards to four winning bidders to supply a total of 509,950 metric tons of well-milled long grain white rice to the Philippines .

The NFA awarded the rice importation to Vietnam Southern Food Corp., Louis Dreyfus Commodities Asia Pte. Ltd., Chairyaporn Rice Co., Ltd and Asia Golden Rice, it said.

A total of 300,000 metric tons of rice will be sourced from Vietnam. The balance of 209,950 tons will come from Thailand, the United States, China and Pakistan.

The whole shipment is scheduled to arrive within the first half of the year starting January until May, it added.