MANILA, Philippines?Despite Malacañang?s assurance that the country has enough rice, a shortage not only of the cereal but also of corn is gripping Cebu province, according to a group of grain retailers. Cebuanos consider corn their staple.
?We ran short of our rice supply,? said Teresa Alegado, national president of the Grain Retailers Confederation of the Philippines (GRCP).
Alegado said she considered the rice shortage abnormal because it was the harvest season.
Her claim of a rice shortage came after grain dealers in North Cotabato province complained of limited rice stocks being sold by the National Food Authority (NFA) allegedly as a result of the channeling of the cereal by unscrupulous NFA employees to neighboring provinces.
To ensure a stable rice supply, Malacañang is going after hoarders and those selling NFA-subsidized rice as commercial grain.
Revoke licenses
President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo Tuesday ordered a purge of unscrupulous NFA rice traders by revoking the licenses of all 5,000 NFA retailers and reaccrediting only the qualified ones.
Malacañang will also sell ?critical? basic commodities like rice, pork and cooking oil in government outlets while it encourages manufacturers to come out with affordable goods like ?Tinapay ng Bayan? and ?bonus or econo packs.?
These are among the measures that the Palace plans to undertake amid the rising prices of rice and fuel in the world market, which Ms Arroyo said was placing more strain on the working poor.
Politically sensitive
?We are a price-sensitive nation,? the President said at the start of the Cabinet meeting aimed at ensuring a stable and affordable supply of rice and other foodstuffs.
Rice, the country?s staple, is a politically sensitive crop in the Philippines and fears of a looming shortage could cause unrest, according to analysts.
Last week, the NFA, the state?s rice-importing agency, announced it had bought some 335,000 tons of rice mainly from Vietnam, Thailand and Pakistan to avoid a crisis in the months to come.
Officials have said the government was having difficulty getting supplies of up to 1.8 million tons of rice this year, with prices skyrocketing due to rising demand and tight inventories around the globe.
Alegado said retailers in Cebu had difficulty replenishing their rice supply because they could no longer buy the usual volume from wholesalers.
The wholesalers just tell the retailers in Cebu City to share the available stocks among themselves.
Corn more expensive than rice
Alegado also noted the increasing price of corn, which has become even more expensive than some rice varieties.
A 39-kilo sack of corn, which used to sell for P600 to P650, is now being retailed at P1,000, according to the GRCP president.
Alegado said this was an indication that the corn supply was also running low.
At the Cabinet meeting, Ms Arroyo appealed to retailers not to jack up the prices of their goods ?just because some people are saying there is a (food) crisis.?
Living in fantasy world
But Makati Mayor Jejomar Binay said the Arroyo administration was refusing to admit the existence of a rice crisis.
?It believes in a fantasy world where rice is plenty, no one is poor, and Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo won the 2004 presidential election,? said Binay, also president of the United Opposition.
The opposition leader also accused Palace officials of insensitivity with its appeal to Filipinos to reduce their rice consumption.
Rude awakening
?The fact is millions of our countrymen subsist mainly on rice and have no money for anything else,? Binay said in a statement.
Binay said that unless the Arroyo administration acknowledged the crisis and took concrete steps to mitigate its effects on the poor, it would be in for a rude awakening.
?When people take to the streets not for a political event but to demand rice on their tables, then perhaps the Arroyo administration will wake up from its day-dreaming,? he said.
After the Cabinet meeting, Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap brought along with him rice farmers from the provinces of Pangasinan, Isabela, Cagayan and Nueva Ecija, to reiterate that the supply of rice in the country was adequate.
Yap said the price of rice was going up because of many factors like the rising costs of fertilizer and fuel.
NFA rice at P18.25 a kilo
Yap said the President had instructed him to keep NFA rice at P18.25 a kilo so that the public would have access to the subsidized cereal.
Ms Arroyo also instructed Yap to go after hoarders and those responsible for diverting NFA rice from government outlets.
NFA passbooks
?He (Yap) is investigating all warehouses, watching them, re-licensing them. He shall hit the hoarders,? she said.
Yap told reporters that Ms Arroyo had ordered the NFA to revoke all the ?passbooks? of its 5,000 retailers and to reaccredit retailers.
?We will issue new passbooks and we will be strict in implementing a one retailer, one passbook policy,? he said.
The government will also ?re-license? all millers and palay (unhusked rice) traders to ?ensure it has basis for the monitoring that will be conducted on them in the coming months,? the agriculture secretary said.
Yap said the revocation and re-accreditation were being done following reports that one retailer would go to an NFA warehouse bringing 20 to 50 passbooks and seeking the withdrawal of NFA stocks.
From there, authorities do not know where the NFA rice is being brought, he said.
A retailer carrying a passbook is entitled to around 30 to 50 bags of rice per week, he said.
?We will start from scratch,? Yap said of the revocation of the licenses of NFA retailers, noting that this will give authorities the opportunity to determine whether they are financially capable to engage in rice trading.
?When we do evaluation and monitoring later on, we will know whether they are hoarding or hiding rice,? he added.
300 to 400 warehouses
Yap said there were 300 to 400 NFA warehouses and the government was keeping an eye on ?critical urban-populated areas? where he said NFA stocks and their withdrawals were ?big.?
Yap said some rice traders and retailers were bound to take advantage of the situation amid reports of rice shortage.
He said he was talking with NFA Administrator Jessup P. Navarro to draw up new rules on the withdrawal of rice from the agency.
Raising palay buying price
In addition, Yap said his office was planning to increase the palay buying price through more incentives, seed support and other interventions.
Currently, the buying price for palay is P12 a kilo, inclusive of several incentives amounting to P1 a kilo.
The additional incentives are broken down into the following: 25 centavos a kilo for drying and delivery; another 25 centavos a kilo as Cooperative Development Incentive Fund for farmer cooperatives; and 50 centavos a kilo as La Niña incentive being granted until this month.
Navarro said the NFA would field additional enforcement teams nationwide to minimize, if not totally eradicate, rice diversion.
Reshuffle of NFA executives
Navarro also issued a special order calling for the immediate reshuffle of the agency?s field executives.
In the wake of reports that 17,000 bags of NFA rice meant for North Cotabato had been diverted to Sultan Kudarat and Maguindanao, NFA Central Mindanao director Edgar Bentolan was reassigned to Luzon. He was replaced by Emilio Andrion, who was previously assigned at the NFA central office in Manila.
Bentolan, who was named head of the NFA in Calabarzon, said his departure from Central Mindanao was part of the routine reshuffle in the agency and had nothing to do with the controversy involving the North Cotabato NFA office.
Navarro has ordered an investigation of the alleged involvement of NFA officials in the diversion of rice stocks.
Probe in North Cotabato
The Provincial Council of North Cotabato started Tuesday an inquiry into the reported shortage of NFA rice in the province.
While the Provincial Council started its investigation, the NFA regional office said it ordered NFA provincial manager Anthony Mariano Bernad to explain the alleged sale of NFA rice to Sultan Kudarat and Maguindanao.
In Digos City, NFA Davao del Sur operations manager Virgilio Alerta said the province had enough supply.
The government will hold a ?Food Summit? on April 4 to discuss the need to increase the production of rice, corn, vegetables, fish and other items in the so-called food basket. With reports from DJ Yap in Manila; Charlie C. Señase, Jeoffrey Maitem, Orlando B. Dinoy and Eldie S. Aguirre, Inquirer Mindanao; and Agence France-Presse
