MANILA, Philippines—Sen. Edgardo Angara Sunday said the present rice crisis was “artificial” and was caused by hoarders and unscrupulous traders.

Philippine Daily Inquirer reports from the provinces indicated that rice hoarders were in collusion with some managers of National Food Authority (NFA) warehouses, who diverted tens of thousands of bags of cheap rice which were re-bagged and sold at higher commercial prices.

Angara said the country was actually facing “a rice distribution crisis” and that the panic was being fanned by the hoarders themselves who anticipate a rise in prices.

Angara, chair of the Senate committee on agriculture and a former agriculture secretary, warned against imposing knee-jerk solutions to the problem, saying the situation would likely be resolved with this summer’s harvest and coming major shipments from Vietnam.

In Kidapawan City, the provincial manager of the NFA in North Cotabato was sacked after the provincial board questioned his involvement in the withdrawal of more than 20,000 sacks of rice from a government warehouse in less than one month. The rice was reportedly delivered to big grain traders.

In the past weeks, the price of commercial rice in Cotabato shot up by more than P4 from last month’s average of P24 per kilo.

Rogelio Macutay, NFA director for Central Mindanao, Sunday said NFA North Cotabato manager Anthony Mariano Bernad was relieved effective last Friday.

Macutay said Bernad’s possible involvement in the unauthorized delivery of government rice to big traders had put the government’s subsidized rice program in question and demoralized NFA employees in the province.

Grain passbook used

He said Bernad was being asked to explain why 21,000 bags of NFA rice were withdrawn from the warehouse between March 6 and 18.

Macutay said Bernad had apparently authorized the withdrawals and even used the passbooks of members of the Grains Retailers Confederation (Grecon), a group of small rice traders in the province, to cover the deliveries.

None of the Grecon members, however, received the rice supposedly delivered to them. Instead, the Sangguniang Panlalawigan found the sacks of rice in the warehouses of three big grain traders.

Mansueto Betia, a Grecon member and a rice retailer in Mlang, North Cotabato, said Bernad had borrowed his passbook. He said when Bernad returned the passbook, it indicated he had received 1,734 bags of imported rice from the NFA provincial office.

In Bicol, unscrupulous traders were also reportedly able to purchase as many as 1,000 bags of rice from NFA warehousess.

Jose Guevarra, assistant regional director of the NPA in Bicol, admitted there were NFA officials in Naga City currently under investigation for an alleged anomaly while their manager has been reassigned.

Agriculture Secretary Arthur Yap visited the Bicol region last week and promised to punish all the officials found to be colluding with unscrupulous traders.

Guevarra said the national government recently ordered the immediate relicensing of rice traders nationwide to get rid of “fly-by-night” rice traders.

Gueverra said they would not tolerate NFA employees being involved in the anomalous rice trade but “due process was to be observed.”

Supplies trickle

In Laguna, retailers observed a sudden slowdown in rice deliveries.

“There are not enough rice supplies coming from regular rice producers in Bulacan, Nueva Ecija, Ilocos, Pila and Biñan towns in Laguna, a rice trader in Calamba City said.

Francisco de la Rosa, owner of a rice and grocery business, told the Inquirer that since last week, tons of daily rice deliveries, which he then redistributed to market dealers, had become very irregular.

There were days last week when there were literally no rice deliveries, he said.

He was hopeful the rice crisis could be contained by government plans to buy 1.5 million tons from Vietnam and other sources. With reports by Romulo Ponte and Ephraim Aguilar, Inquirer Southern Luzon