Cheap rice available in Bulacan markets

NO MORE NFA RICE A woman is forced to buy commercial rice after the stock of cheaper rice from the National Food Authority (NFA) is sold out at the Sangitan public market in Cabanatuan City.—ARMAND GALANG

CITY OF MALOLOS — Rice millers in Bulacan said they were selling rice at P38 a kilogram at local markets in urban poor areas in the province starting on Thursday.

Roderico Sulit, vice president of the Bulacan Rice Millers Association, said they would distribute a minimum of 150 bags in the towns of Bocaue, Marilao and Balagtas, and the City of Malolos.

Echoing assurances made by the government, Marianne Pualenco, an official of the millers’ group, said they expected rice prices to stabilize before Christmas, with the harvest season this month and in October, and the expected arrival of imported rice that would soon flood the market.

The millers sent cheap rice to Metro Manila markets in June when rice stocks of the National Food Authority (NFA) ran out.

Augmenting supply

Sulit said more millers had volunteered to join the group’s project to augment the supply of cheap rice, focusing on poor families.

“We urge those who can afford the more expensive varieties not to line up, and give way to the poor,” he said during the launching of the project on Tuesday at the NFA Malolos office.

Elvira Obama, NFA Bulacan manager, said more than 120,000 cavans of rice would be delivered to the province from Subic Bay Freeport.

‘Bigasang Bayan’

Once the Subic stock reached NFA warehouses, the agency would put up “Bigasang Bayan” (public rice markets) which would sell the grains at P32 a kilo, she said.

In Pampanga, the NFA stopped its rice allocations for 243 accredited retailers in the province, to reserve its supply of 1,998 bags as a food security measure, according to NFA provincial coordinator Roberto Mariano Jr.

He said NFA would resume the allocations when it received 4,500 bags from the NFA central office and 80,000 bags from the agency’s imported stocks that arrived in two vessels at the Subic Bay Freeport.

In Nueva Ecija province, stores accredited to sell government subsidized rice in Cabanatuan City received only 25 bags a week from NFA. —Reports from Carmela Reyes-Estrope, Tonette Orejas and Armand Galang