MANILA, Philippines--AN OPPOSITION congressman has asked three House committees to look into the reported adverse effects on the country's food security of a recently-passed law mandating the use of biofuels as an energy source.

Senior Deputy Minority Leader Roilo Golez said the worldwide biofuels program has generated a "food versus fuel" debate since the setting aside of more land for planting biofuel crops has affected food production.

"It could even cause a rise in beer prices," Golez said in a statement after he filed House Resolution No. 376.

Golez said the biofuels program affected the beer industry in the US when the barley growing area was cut as a result of the need for biofuels, "thus increasing the price of barley which is a very important ingredient in beer making."

The resolution aims to direct the House committees on ecology, on energy, and on agriculture and food "to conduct an inquiry, in aid of legislation, on the current biofuels program and review its impact on energy security, carbon emissions, global warming and food security."

"Since Republic Act No. 9367, or the Biofuels Act of 2006, was enacted on Jan. 12, 2007, there have been some very critical findings by noted scientists that necessitate an urgent review of the country's biofuels policy," Golez said.

He said that in October 2007, global warming expert Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen said the advantages of reduced carbon dioxide emissions were more than offset by the increased nitrous oxide emissions from biofuels.

Nitrous oxide, he said, is considered to be both a potent greenhouse gas and a destroyer of the ozone layer.

Golez said that Jean Ziegler, the United Nations special rapporteur on food, concluded that while the argument for biofuels in terms of energy efficiency and climate change was legitimate, the effects on world hunger of transforming wheat and maize crops into biofuel "are absolutely catastrophic."

The biofuels law mandates the use of such renewable sources of energy as ethanol in transportation and industry. Such biofuels are sourced from certain crops that are also promoted by the biofuels program.